The Last Wish
by tini243
Summary: Three wishes, three choices. What will Sandor choose if given the chance?
1. Drunk

**_Author's note:_**

Hello everyone, I am back with another story. This one has an unrealistic premise and isn't meant to be taken too seriously. I hope you enjoy.

 ** _Chapter 1: Drunk_**

As pathetic as it sounded, but Sandor Clegane was well aware that he was no stranger to the various states of being drunk.

Usually, it started with a slight tipsiness, the sort that spread warmth comfortably through your belly and from there to your limbs. Warmed like this, seemingly boundless energy pumps through your veins then, making you feel as if the world is your playground and you are its hero.

If you plan to get a whore under you, that is the best moment to do so, because at this point, you can still get hard while not caring about much anymore. Not about their disgusted faces or their empty eyes, not about their theatrics and their pitiful attempts at pretending.

If you keep drinking then, memories recede and leave you comfortably, wonderfully numb and tired, ready to curl up right where you stand and sleep for centuries. Which is actually the right point to find your bed and do just that, because if you're still guzzling wine by then, the lights will start to wobble and double, your steps will be those of a sailor on a ship tossed in a storm. Usually, the cycle ends with either a comatose sleep wherever you happen to keel over, or with losing the contents of your stomach. Sometimes both.

The one thing he hadn't experienced so far, was seeing glowing lights dance in front of his eyes while stumbling through a dark passageway, trying to find his way to his own bed.

Glowing lights that - on further inspection - turned out to have the shape of a tiny woman, weirdly reminding him of Sansa Stark. Then again, anything reminded her of the little bird these days.

To be quite honest, she was the very reason he was so drunk in the first place.

Her and that big mailed fist that had landed in her lovely face, not for the first time, leaving her with a split lip and a bruise on her chin that would surely be purple tomorrow.

It hadn't been his fist, but it might have as well been, for all he had done to prevent it from happening. He'd stood by, angry, yes, but motionless and with his face carefully void of expression and hoping Joffrey would be satisfied with the blood Blount had drawn.

He was a fucking coward, that's what he was.

So he'd gone and got himself well and truly drunk, trying to forget his helplessness and his cowardice; trying to silence the voice inside his head that forever urged him to protect and defend her and most of all trying to quench the desire to draw her in his arms and never let her go again.

That last one was the most disturbing of all. He had his bouts of chivalry, nothing new there. Injustice had never stopped unnerving him, no matter how inundated his life as the Lannister's dog should have made him to it, no matter how much he told himself that the world was an awful place that no one – least of all a man like him – would ever be able to change. A man like him surely was rather part of the problem than of the solution.

But with her, it was more than faint pity, the acknowledgement of injustice done to someone undeserving. With her, it was the burning wish to fold himself around her, be her sword and her shield and see to it that everything and everyone who tried hurting her would have to go through him to reach her.

For a while, he'd told himself that all he wanted was to fuck her. That would get her out of his system in no time, judging by the way he forgot a whore's face the moment he turned and left.

Unfortunately, he had a thing for beautiful women, Cersei being no exception. Now the lovely Sansa Stark. Too bad that "opposites attract" didn't work with ugly men and beautiful women. Would certainly be less of a drain on his purse if it worked that way and he wouldn't need to pay for cunt all the time.

Then again, in his more sober moments, he was well aware he couldn't even imagine fucking her. He had a thing for beautiful women, yes, but they had to be women, not children. He'd never understood those who asked for girls Sansa's age in the brothels, _'anyone whose age is on the clock'_ as they called it, and in his less than glorious moments he'd been known to knock the lights out of louts who openly showed this propensity while he was there to witness it.

He leaned against the wall next to him, the glowing mist in front of his eyes making his head spin so much he feared he would fall down if he'd try and go on. The mist dispersed into tiny glittering motes of dust as he swatted at it, but then coalesced into the form of a tiny girl again.

A girl with tiny wings. A little bird, it seemed.

Wait, what? He shook his head, closed his eyes and tried to clear his vision.

Without success. There she was, tiny, golden, and fluttering to keep on his eye-level.

"Hello Sandor," the fluttery thing greeted him politely and with the refined accents of a highborn maiden.

"Hello," he greeted back stupidly, too surprised about his vision being able to talk to think of another reaction.

"I am a fairy, sent by the Old Gods to fulfil three of your wishes."

Once again he tried to get rid of the vision with so much head-shaking and eye-closing and rubbing his hands over his face, he was about to make himself sick.

 _I wish I didn't have such a taste for wine all the time_ , he thought groggily. _Maybe that would help with the whole seeing fairies thing._

"Granted," the little thing chirped happily and before he could even start to sort his wine-soaked thoughts, his stomach clenched and heaved.

He barely managed to turn to the side before the whole content of his stomach came up, so foul it made him retch until he was dry-heaving. With his hands braced against his knees, his throat burning and his eyes watering from the cramping in his stomach, he was nonetheless aware the gold-dusted apparition was still around.

"I didn't...," he started, gasped and fought down another wave of heaving. "I didn't even say anything!"

"That's not necessary," the glowing wisp informed him haughtily, little nose in the air. "We grant even your most secret wishes you only have in the privacy of your thoughts."

He scoffed and straightened up carefully. His head felt a bit clearer now, but apparently not enough to stop the stupid-ass vision that still danced merrily in front of his face.

"Bugger off," he growled at it, while carefully trying to set one foot in front of the other, slowly making his way back to the keep, to sleep off whatever plagued him.

 _Maybe it is a dream_ , he thought. It certainly wouldn't be the weirdest he ever had, although his usually contained blood and fire. Additionally, his gut felt way too sore for this not to be real, but one could never know. Maybe he'd passed out drunk, had vomited in his sleep and the cramps in his gut were the part that was actually real. Once again, sad as it was, it wouldn't be the first time something like this happened.

If it _WAS_ a dream, then maybe the best thing to do would be to bring it to whatever conclusion it needed to have.

"I wish for three more wishes," he said, just to be contrary.

The tiny thing pouted, then fluttered towards him to land on his shoulder. Slapping at it, admittedly somewhat uncoordinated, only produced a puff of golden dust and then she sat there again.

"Don't tell me you don't know that's against the rules," she chided. "You cannot wish for more wishes, you cannot change the past and you cannot wish for someone to die."

"Pity," he said, thinking of Gregor and then a whole list of people, realizing he would need more than one fairy for them. _IF_ killing people wasn't against some damned fairy rule. Luckily, he had arms strong enough and a sword sharp enough to do away with those in his way, no need for any wishes.

"I wish...," he started and stopped again as her face appeared in his mind, too young and so very lovely. A face averted in horror every time she saw him. "I wish I wouldn't have this," he said, pointing to his face. "Make me whole again, why don't you?"

He turned his head, which nearly made him stumble into a wall and gave the fairy a triumphant, challenging look. See which fairy rules she comes up with now.

"Granted," the wisp said simply, waving her little glowing hands.

Nothing happened.

Just to make sure, he clumsily groped his face to find everything as it always had been.

"Figures," he mumbled, too drunk and too tired to laugh about his own idiotic expectations. Even in his dreams, things never went his way.

"You will have to go to sleep," the fairy told him earnestly. "Wishes like that take a night's sleep for the transformation magic to take effect."

Now, he did laugh, even though it did nothing for either his dizziness or the cramps in his stomach.

"Oh, sure, of course," he snorted, "transformation magic, how stupid of me."

She pouted again. "Have you never heard of something or someone who _changed overnight_?"

"Never had someone telling me fairy tales and wouldn't believe in them even if I had."

"Believe me or not, you'll see in the morning," she said, still pouting.

He shook his head, trying another approach. Maybe the apparition would go away if he ignored it.

"You should think about your last wish with a clearer mind," the gentle voice piped up again after he'd made some progress towards his destination. "I'll be back tomorrow. Don't forget that I will grant it as soon as you think _'I wish_ '."

He grunted his acknowledgement of the absurdity, hoping it would finally rid him of the little golden-dusted plague and to his surprise, it did.

Finding his chambers and bed at last, he collapsed face-first into it, dead to the world.

...

tbc


	2. Hungover

**_Author's note:_**

Thanks for the encouraging reviews. For those of you wondering: Sansa will appear in the next chapter.

 ** _Chapter 2: Hungover_**

Sunny morning-light fell on his face when he woke, stabbing into his eyes even through closed eyelids and acerbating the pounding in his head. The prospect of having to open his eyes at one point was a dreadful one.

The left side of his face felt odd and swollen, not quite painful yet, but he knew that might well be coming soon if it started out this way.

Squinting into the light, he tried to sit up, only to double over with a wrenching pain in his gut. His tongue felt as if it had turned into something foul and hairy overnight and stuck to the roof of his mouth. Thirst had him grope blindly on the ground for the wineskin he kept there for situations exactly like this. After a couple of moments, he found it, set it to his lips and drank.

Only to spit everything out again as the taste of whatever it was someone had filled into this wineskin registered in his brain. His intestines revolted and by the time he had himself halfway under control again, he was shaking so badly he could barely keep sitting.

Whoever had thought to have him drink horse-piss or whatever this was would regret the day he conceived the idea of playing a prank on the Hound. Or better, he'd make him rue the day he was born.

Cursing loudly, he stood up on wobbly legs, only to have to sit down again as his head swam and his vision turned black around the edges.

With a creak, the door to his chambers opened and revealed the sorry individual who was his squire, the wish to be anywhere but here clear on the young boy's face.

The boy's eyes grew wide like saucers, making him look even more childlike, when he saw him.

If he wouldn't have felt so shitty, he might have laughed at the thought how much worse than usual he looked to cause such astonishment. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen him after a night of drinking before.

"Ser, what... what are you doing in Ser Sandor's chamber?" his squire squeaked. Sandor squinted at him, sure he'd misheard.

He knew he might look a bit the worse for wear, but surely not as bad as not to be recognized.

"Quit your bloody blabbering, boy and help me with that armour," he barked, regretting making that much noise an instant later, grasping his head.

The boy's eyes rounded even more, but he wisely did as being bid.

"And find me the one who thought it fun to put horse-piss in my wineskin," he said, pointing at the offending object. "I've a mind to skin him alive."

"It's not... Ser, I filled that skin myself last night, it's sour Arbor Red as Ser Sandor requested."

Sandor growled, took a few steps, picked the skin up from where he'd thrown it and held it out to the boy.

"Drink it!"

The boy carefully sniffed and then took a gulp and shuddered.

Sandor gave a victorious huff.

"It's way too sour for my taste, but it's what Ser Sandor prefers," the boy said, eyes on Sandor's chin as he gave the flagon back.

"Stop talking as if I'm not here," he growled and held to flagon to his own nose, sniffed and had to clamp down on another wave of nausea as he did, otherwise he would have told the boy for the thousandth time that he'd do him bodily harm next time he called him "ser". Not that this particular threat had helped before.

Meanwhile, the boy had fetched his armour, the pieces polished to a shine, and started the lengthy process of getting him into it.

Someone pounded on the door, making the noise reverberating in his head painfully.

"Clegane, you drunken sod, come out, the king wants us!"

Deciding to leave the matter of the spoiled wine for later, Sandor had his squire fix the last pieces of plate to him, donned his white cloak and stormed out.

Blount was waiting for him, round-eyed just as his squire had been.

"Who in seven hells might you be and what are you doing wearing Kingsguard armour?"

Sandor snorted.

"Bugger me if I know."

So fucking drunk he'd seen fairies last night, this truly had to be the worst hangover he had yet to suffer through. With people not recognizing him on top of wine tasting like piss, he had half a mind to crawl back into bed and sleep until all this went away.

Blount was still ogling him as if he'd seen a ghost.

"Stop your gaping and yammering and start moving," Sandor growled, not hiding either his impatience nor his foul mood. "Didn't you say the king wants us?"

"But..."

"Blount, stop it or I'll do it for you."

The fat man finally shut up and followed him to the king's chambers, shooting him worried glances from time to time.

With a lifetime of experience in ignoring people's queer glances, this only barely bothered him and they reached their destination without further incident.

"Who are you?" was the first question out of Joffrey's mouth.

Sandor ground his teeth. If someone was playing a trick on him, they had done an admirably thorough job. If he wouldn't be the object of this particular jest, he might applaud the courage it took to get the boy-king in on it.

"You asked for me, your Grace."

"I asked for Sandor Clegane," the King said, for some reason not as amused by this whole farce as one would expect him to be, considering. "While you look as if you might be his younger brother, it is not you I asked for."

His _younger_ brother? If what he felt like was anything to go by, the only family member he thought he resembled at the moment should be his grandfather. Shortly before croaking, that was.

A hunch, a faint memory of golden dust, made him touch his face. The bad side.

Or to be more precise, the one that used to be the bad one.

He only found unmarred skin, healthy and sound, if a bit stubbly.

"I...," he started and stopped again. "I... I need a mirror."

Joffrey impatiently pointed to one corner of the room where a full-length mirror stood next to the window. Sandor had witnessed Joffrey preen in front of it more times than he could count, while he himself did not have any use for mirrors, naturally.

"You might have done a bit of research first before impersonating someone like Clegane," Blount said behind him with barely concealed glee. "You've his build, but..."

The rest of the toad's sentence was swallowed by the roar in his head - part of which he might have voiced as well - as he looked at the visage staring at him from the mirror.

Pretty much like Joffrey had said, he looked like his own younger brother. His handsome younger brother. He still had black hair, mostly straight and unkempt today due to all the haste. It appeared a bit fuller and wavier than he remembered, probably because it didn't only grow on one half of his head.

He still recognized his brow, eyes and nose, the marked chin and sharp cheekbones. But his face appeared less gaunt, the eyes not as deeply set, albeit ringed with deep, dark shadows, owing to the night he'd had. The overall aspect of the face of the man in the mirror was more pleasing to the eye than his own face ever had been, even if it wasn't for the scars.

Scars that, now that they were not there anymore, made the most glaring, most upsetting difference to what he had expected to see in that mirror.

With a sickening, sinking feeling in his stomach, he perused the left side of his face. The one that should be a nightmare of blackened flesh and oozing fissures.

Careful, as if fearing to shatter the image, he touched his face again, felt for the bit of bone that used to protrude at his jaw. He found nothing but warm, prickly skin.

Hands shaking, he turned back to where Joffrey was glaring daggers at him.

"You'll lose your head for this, impostor!" the boy screeched. "Ser Boros, take him to the black cells!"

Boros, for once knowing what was good for him, hesitated before setting his bulk into motion.

Even though the man posed no real threat, the situation needed to be diffused and fast. He might be able to take on Blount and probably the rest of the guard as well, but there were limits even to his abilities.

"Need I remind your Grace of the incident with your tutor's daughter about which I lied for you to your father?"

Joffrey blanched, Blount stopped walking.

"He wouldn't have told anyone, he swore to me he wouldn't," Joffrey said tonelessly. "Did you torture that out of him? Where is my Hound?"

Joffrey's sudden concern for his welfare might be touching, wouldn't he know that it only stemmed from Joff's sudden fear that more of his unsavoury habits would see the light of day.

Robert had been appalled at the kitten incident, but he'd never knew even the half of it.

"He's standing right in front of you!" Sandor said through gritted teeth, seconds away from shouting.

Joffrey clamped his mouth shut and narrowed his eyes.

"The name of the butcher boy who threatened me on our way back from Winterfell?"

"Mycah."

"The Stark bitch's dead direwolf?"

"Lady."

"What the hell happened to you?"

"Too much wine and... I don't know. Truly don't."

Joffrey's face darkened.

"I preferred you ugly and scary," he said, pouting.

Sandor contemplated asking him if he should hold his face to a brazier to please his grace, but there was no telling if the boy would recognize the sarcasm. While he had no idea if what just happened was real, or just a prolonged version of last night's weird dream, he nonetheless found the thought of walking around with an intact face quite appealing and had no intention to risk anything happening to it.

"Go away," Joffrey said, still sulking. "I have Blount and Trant guarding me during court, you can... do something else, I don't care. I'll let you know should I have need of you."

…

Finding himself suddenly with time on his hands, Sandor didn't quite know what to do with it.

He went to the kitchens to get himself something to eat and a new wineskin. He got both in addition to a lot of friendly smiles to which he wasn't accustomed at all. The smiles vanished when he glowered back and the maids went on hurrying and averting their eyes from him as they had before, which was at least familiar.

The food tasted like shit, as usual after a night like the last and the wine he threw against the wall after noticing he still couldn't stand the smell.

 _Careful what you wish for, my ass,_ he thought. With his stupid, drunken musings, he'd probably condemned himself to die of thirst before the day was over.

Then again, it was only a dream anyway, so maybe he should get the most out of having a whole face, even if it wasn't real.

He went back to his chambers, threw water in his face, rinsed his mouth and combed his hair. Then he spent an inordinate amount of time getting rid of the stubble on his face, careful not to nick the side he had no experience shaving.

Hollering for his squire, he then changed out of the cumbersome plate armour and donned one of the fine white tunics embroidered with the kingsguard sigil. Then he went outside again and walked through the keep all the while racking his brain to what he _should_ do with a face like this. Maybe he should have asked that idiot Oakheart, who never was without obliging female company.

Lost in his thoughts, he almost collided with Cersei, who was apparently taking a turn around the grounds in company of two other ladies whose name escaped him at the moment.

"Who might you be and what are you doing wearing a kingsguard cloak?"

Maybe what he should do was make a list of how often he'd been asked that question today.

"Sandor Clegane, at your service, my lady," he said and bowed.

Cersei's artificial smile wavered a bit and she threw a nervous look at her ladies in waiting, then let her eyes stray farther to the side, probably trying to see whom she could call to her for help against whom she thought was an impostor.

He sighed and started the same game he had with Joffrey.

If this was supposed to be his version of a dream full of wishful thinking, it sure made him go through quite a lot of drudgery to keep his pretty head on his shoulders.

"When you were thirteen years old," he said, "you went to a fortune teller..."

Cersei held up a hand, silencing him with an expression of pure panic on her face.

"Would you excuse us for a minute?" she asked her two companions with a sugary smile and motioned for him to continue when they were out of earshot.

"You came out crying. You never told me what she'd said, but you made me swear to never tell anyone... I didn't."

Cersei's eyes widened, her smile vanished.

"How could he tell you that!" she said, aghast.

"I _am_ Sandor Clegane," he hissed at her, turning his formerly 'good side' to her. "Can't you see?"

Cersei shook her head, but then looked, looked again.

"Shortly after I married Robert, I asked you to bring a message to my father," she said finally, her voice tinged with disbelief, "I didn't write it down, you had to memorize it, what was it?"

"This marriage is a mistake," he repeated the gist of what had been her raging, ranting reproach against her father. "You bade me marry someone who calls me by another's name in our bed and is often too drunk to find his way to where he should be to make his heir. This marriage will be the downfall of House Lannister, mark my words."

A pained smile appeared on Cersei's lips.

"A bit overdramatic, I guess," she admitted to Sandor's surprise. "But correct."

Then she turned to him fully and shook her head in amazement.

"What happened?"

"Fuck me if I know."

Her smile changed again; she had thousands of them, he knew, and this one was one of those never once given in his direction.

 _Later, maybe_ , it seemed to say, or maybe that was only his imagination. When it came to Cersei, he'd spent years imagining and more times than he could count with his hand on his cock.

He hadn't done so for a long time, but it wasn't something one simply forgot.

"No one can hear us, tell me the truth," she demanded.

"I didn't lie, I have no idea," he grated, thinking that he might have wished for his voice to be a bit more pleasant, too, while he was at it. But be that as it may, he had no intention to make Cersei think he had lost his wits along with his scars by telling her a drunkard's tale of fairies and three wishes.

"Passed out drunk last night, woke this morning hungover, thirsty and apparently with this face. Thought it was a prank when everyone pretended not to recognize me."

Her gaze was unwavering on his face, this time lacking the usual disdain for him that always lingered in the downturn of the corners of her mouth, in the way she looked down her nose at him, quite a feat considering she was more than a head smaller than him.

Then again, she'd never looked away, not once. Even as a girl, not much older than Sansa, she had not shied away from him, never had a thought for pitying him or averting her eyes. So secure was she in her beauty, her appeal, she didn't fear ugliness, even though she hated deformity and ugliness in others as if everyone was personally to blame for his own appearance.

Her eyes took in his face, his hair, wandered down his body, lazily, assessing.

He was pretty sure his body hadn't changed at all. His armour was made to fit him like a skin and he would have noticed if something was amiss there, but still her eyes wandered and lingered as if she saw him for the first time, in a way that felt almost indecently intimate.

"I am feeling a bit faint after this surprise," she said slowly, not looking at all different from before. "I'd like you to accompany me to my chambers."

They walked there in silence and when she bade him enter, he experienced the entirely new sensation of both his eyebrows crawling up to his hairline. Before, any sort of exaggerated facial expression had been uncomfortable at best, stretching and tugging at his scars.

What people took for stoicism and lack of emotions, humour mostly, was in truth just an unwillingness to cause more pain than necessary.

He stepped inside, looking around. His years as Joffrey's shield had not given him much opportunity to be in Cersei's chambers. Not that he missed his former duty.

She poured both of them a goblet of wine, Arbor Gold from the looks of it, and offered it to him with a smile.

"All that reminiscing about the past got me in a nostalgic mood," she said, her voice low and seductive.

Much as he tried to tell himself that this was a dream, years of instincts told him to be quick in puzzling out what Cersei might want from him.

Cersei always wanted something when she began to use her feminine wiles and it surely would be better if he knew beforehand. If this turned out not to be a dream – although he couldn't imagine how it could be anything else – he should keep his wits about himself.

"We used to spend much time together, you and I, didn't we?"

 _Together_ , was stretching the truth quite badly. He was her shadow, always around, never thought of, never noticed as long as he didn't stand in the sun, blocked her way or managed in any other way to incur her displeasure.

She handed him one goblet and he watched her drink it, then took a careful whiff. As he'd feared, his throat closed and his stomach threatened to summersault once again at the smell.

 _I'll kill you when next I see you again, bloody stupid fairy_ , he thought bitterly.

Fortunately, Cersei didn't seem to notice he hadn't drunk anything and soon enough plucked the goblet out of his hand again, stepping even closer to him and running a finger down his face.

"You're a different man now, Sandor Clegane," she purred at him. "What are you planning to do with this unexpected turn of events?"

His body answered her nearness, her touch, with a disconcerting immediacy and he very nearly told her that he wouldn't mind fucking her if she was so inclined. Still, even for a dream, that might be a bit of a big step over a line that had been clearly drawn between them from the very beginning.

Lust-addled as his thoughts were, they still snagged on part of what she had been saying.

"How am I a different man?" he asked, his muddled state of mind not helped by the way Cersei so very indecently pressed herself against him. "I am still who I always was."

She threw her head back and laughed, throaty and genuinely amused.

"Oh you poor man, you have quite a surprise ahead of you," she said, amusement a bright glitter in her eyes, like sunshine poking through the canopy of trees. "You are what people see when they look at you. It made you into who you were when you looked like a monster, it will change you again now that you look good enough to eat."

At that, she rubbed against him and there was no way she wasn't aware of his state of arousal.

"Speaking of which," she said, running her hand over his chest while following its progress with a greedy gaze, "I'd not be averse to taking the first bite. My father always lectures me about the importance of adequately rewarding those loyal to us."

 _Alright then_ , he thought dazedly as he reached an arm around her and yanked her against him with a hand on the small of her back. That sealed it; this was a dream, despite all the weirdness. An aged up, somewhat disturbing variant of his youthful wet dreams, but something he would not pass up.

Cersei chuckled throatily at his sudden ardour as he bent his head to her.

...

tbc


	3. Sober

**_Author's notes:_**

Thanks everyone for the lovely reviews. For this chapter, please keep in mind that this is at its core a fairy tale, characters might be a bit idealized and situations are purposefully glossy.

Hope you enjoy.

 ** _Chapter 3: Sober_**

Sandor's face still stung even more than an hour later from the mighty slap Cersei had planted on his cheek – the left one, which he found oddly fitting – before he hastily left her chambers, accompanied by her vow that he would regret this.

The thought that he might have gotten himself into more trouble than this was worth somehow entertained him, but even looking back, he couldn't imagine a different outcome.

He had been hell-bent on taking what Cersei had offered, on finally reliving years of fantasies, get her back for years of flaunting herself in front of him, so close and yet so utterly out of reach. He meant to make the most out of the opportunity that presented itself, be it a dream or not, no matter what the price may be. And knowing Cersei, there would be one, at least of that he had been sure.

But when he had bent down to reach her mouth, Cersei had put her fingers over his lips.

"I offer my body, nothing else," she had said with a honey-sweet smile and the words had hit him like a bucket of cold water. A much needed one.

Of course she was just offering her body. What had he expected? Hours of passionate love-making? Supplanting the Kingslayer in his sister's bed? A place where he would be welcomed?

Truth be told, he had expected neither. Had had neither the presence of mind nor the time to think of it, but when she had made it clear what he _could_ expect, it became blindingly clear to him that it wasn't what he wanted.

Not even if this was a dream. Or maybe _especially_ if this was a dream, because if it was, shouldn't he get _all_ he wanted and not just a flimsy, cheapened version of it?

If he wanted a quick rut between a woman's legs, beautiful as she might be, he'd much rather pay with gold for a whore than be in Cersei's debt. Besides, now that he really thought about it, did he really want to join the merry circle of which - to his knowledge – a couple of Lannisters and at least one of the Kettleblacks were already members?

The thought was more disturbing than it should have been.

He'd seen how Cersei led men around by their cocks, whether she shared her bed with them or not. Had seen puffed up, self-important lords make fools of themselves over her. Had found it a secret source of entertainment for all this time at her side. Hells, the few times they had actually spoken with one another was when they had both made fun of some poor sod who had mistaken her sweetness for real affection. Back then, he'd sworn to himself he'd never sink this low for a woman. Not for her, not for anyone.

"If I want a whore, I pay for one," he had said as he had stepped back from her, which for one thing probably wasn't a wise decision and for another earned him a cracking slap on the cheek.

A slap that surprisingly stung more than he would have expected if this was a dream.

Absentmindedly, he rubbed at the spot as he stood atop the battlements of the keep, looking down into the courtyard.

He had braced his hands against the crenels atop the wall, feeling the irregular edges of the stones under his palms, the roughness of the mortar between. Afternoon sunlight warmed his skin and a slight breeze from the sea - bringing a smell of salt with it - ruffled his hair.

 _This couldn't be a dream_. Not once had he dreamed with such detail, such incredibly accurate sensory depth. He touched his face again and shook his head.

Then again, if this was real, he would have to accept the change the last night had brought and his thoughts started to scramble and fall all over each other if he only so much as attempted it.

Yes, he'd wished for this for years. Ever since he was that little, burned boy, screaming in pain and sobbing and whining later when his voice and strength had given out. Ever since then, he'd wished that all of it was just a terrible nightmare, something he would wake up from one day, whole and free of pain. Free of frightful stares and averted gazes, of words whispered behind his back and of the looks of pity and disgust from those paid for touching him.

But now that it seemed his wish had been granted, he felt lost. All of this had been so long ago, the little burned boy was long forgotten, his life not even a memory anymore, because it was already shrouded in the mist that surrounds childhood recollections.

There was no thread of a former life he could simply pick up and continue, no place where he belonged and could easily fit into again. Not even so much as a single person with whom he could share the joy this turn of events should be, no one to really care.

What was the upside of all this, besides that he got smiles now instead of averted gazes, frankly appraising stares from the women he passed and disturbingly assessing looks from more than one man? What was he to do with this change, besides fuck his way through every other bed of King's Landing?

He'd spent his life around people who had been born to physical attractiveness, had seen them use it to get whatever they wanted until they had felt it their due. Would he turn into this; charming the kitchen maid to get that extra piece of cake, throwing smiles and pretty words around until he had wrapped everyone around his little finger?

He tried to picture himself emulating the Kingslayer with his easy charm and careless wit and found he couldn't. It had always smacked of lies and deceit and it didn't become more palatable now that it was an option for him.

He shook his head again, purposely turning away from this train of thought.

There had to be something good about this, he just had to find out what. He wasn't one to give up easily. If he was, the little burned boy wouldn't have grown into a man.

If the episode with Cersei was good for one thing, it was to show him what it was he _didn't_ want. Now he merely had to figure out what he actually wanted, especially in the light of the fact that if this was real, he still had one wish left.

…

As he let his gaze once again roam over the courtyard, his eyes sharpened on a slight figure, huddled into a grey cloak, who carefully picked her way toward the serpentine steps.

His hands clenched on the stone beneath them as he recognized her.

Sansa Stark, hair ablaze in the orange afternoon light, her head bent and her eyes darting around. _Not so much a little bird_ , he thought, unamused, but a little mouse trying to gauge if the cat was busy elsewhere.

He snorted, wishing he could tell her that the cat would get her in the end, that she would never be safe here. Not if she was to become Joffrey's wife.

A familiar pang stabbed his belly at the thought of what might await her once this happened and he balled his fists to get a grip. He'd bragged about being the only thing between her and Joffrey when that time came, but in truth, he had no idea if there was anything he would be able to do to help her.

Quietly and quickly, he took the narrow steps down to the courtyard, intent on showing the little bird she could never be too careful looking behind herself, because monsters like him lurked everywhere.

…

"Where are you off to?"

She spun around, losing her footing on the narrow steps and he grabbed her arm to prevent her from tumbling down.

"Ser Sandor...," she stuttered, "I mean... my lord... I am... I meant to... I am going to the Godswood... to pray."

Her eyes were wide, the whites showing like those of an animal terrified for its life. Her skin had lost all colour and she was shaking like a leaf in his grip. On her lip, a dark bruise and a gash still told of the violence done to her the day before.

Once again his stomach muscles clenched at the memory that those bruises were the reason for last night's attempt at drowning himself in wine.

Like always, her obvious fear was like a thorny whip on his skin, like a splinter under his nail, something that lit a blaze of anger in the pit of his belly, even if one only needed to look at her bruises to know she was more than justified to fear men like him.

Then another realization struck.

"You know who I am?" he asked, much more harshly than he had intended.

Her eyes flickered to the left side of his face and he oddly felt as if he still looked a monster. Maybe the fairy's magic had been nothing but a superficial mask, something unreal that some people were still able to look beyond.

"Of course," she whispered.

Without conscious thought, he lifted his free hand to his face. Still, everything was as he had found it this morning. Hale and healthy.

"How can you still be afraid of me now?"

She swallowed and straightened a little.

He'd seen that before on her, this almost imperceptible gain of inner strength, of resolution. As if she had silently commanded herself to get a grip, to be strong. He recognized it because he knew it himself, that moment when you had to kick yourself to face something you'd rather not, when you have to take that step you dread to take, to push beyond your boundaries of comfort, daring and strength.

In her, he'd seen it first just in time to prevent her from pushing Joffrey from the battlements.

"My fear," she began haltingly, "it hasn't been about your scars. Not for a long while."

Surprise made him take a step back.

"What was it about then?" he asked, more than incredulous.

Her eyelids fluttered shut and her cheeks bloomed with pink, a faint shimmer only, speaking of an inner turmoil that fanned his curiosity. If she wouldn't spit it out on her own, he knew he would insist until she did.

But then he was once again object of a frank, blue-eyed gaze.

"Your eyes," she said, "they're always so full of rage, and you're always so rude, so hateful..."

Rude and hateful. Yes, he'd heard that from her before, back when she'd tried to thank him for ripping her out of the clutches of an angry mob. Angry, too. Yes, he was all that and probably a lot more besides.

Shouldn't his newly acquired handsome visage cover all that ugliness, though, as it did for others? Why could she of all people still see?

"That's who I am, little bird," he scoffed. "A dog; angry, rude and hateful. And you're right to fear me."

She shook her head slightly and looked for a moment as if she had more to say on the subject.

"May I continue on my way?" she asked instead.

On its own accord, his hand shot forward again, taking her arm again. He could not let her wander away. Not now. Not yet.

Not when she was the only one who saw him.

"No," he said, trying not to sound too growly, "I'll accompany you."

For a split second, she looked as if she wanted to decline what wasn't a request, but then motioned for him to offer his arm properly and then took it.

They walked in silence until they reached the godswood, the trees looming rather darkly already in the waning light. He saw her nervously bite her lips from time to time, obviously trying to come up with something to say. She even started once or twice but never got past opening her mouth.

He might have mocked her for it, or demanded she speak already whatever was on her mind, but figured he might have scared her enough for one day.

On the path that led inside, Dontos the fool stood, decked out in his new trade's motley, ogling him.

"Who are you and why are you wearing Kingsguard armor?"

Sandor sighed, undecided if he should be angry or amused. He cut a glance down at the little bird who was looking over to Dontos with an adorably furled brow, as if suspecting the fool had finally taken leave of the last of his senses.

"This is Sandor Clegane, Ser Dontos, surely you recognize him?"

Dontos obstinately shook his head.

"No one can mistake this man for Sandor Clegane, my lady," he said, "his scars..."

"...are by no means his only distinctive feature," Sansa cut off his explanation and he felt himself unaccountably warmed by the girl's support.

"Now, shoo," Sandor growled at the fool, fed up with the interruption despite the delight he found in having Sansa Stark talking to someone about his distinctive features. He almost had a mind to ask her to elaborate on that point, would there not be the risk of her talking again about the anger in his eyes and his general intolerableness. "Or I'll show you why they call me the Hound."

After only the merest hesitation, Dontos bowed and took himself away.

They walked deeper into the little grove they called the godswood and Sansa finally let go of his arm to kneel in front of the largest of the trees there, the one with the carved face.

Unsure about what he was supposed to do with himself, Sandor sat down on a large log that seemed to be placed there for exactly this purpose.

Dusk had turned the world around them a light grey, dimming all colour, giving the scene an eerie sense of the unreal which was compounded by the faint gurgling of a nearby spring that sounded like a whisper in a foreign, magical tongue.

After a while, the girl got up from what he supposed had been a prayer and carefully shook her skirts free from the leaves and grass clinging to them, then sat down on the log, primly leaving as much space between them as was possible.

"What happened to you?" she inquired quietly. "To your face, I mean, if you don't mind my asking?"

He didn't mind her asking, had expected it way before this moment and the denial of knowing anything about this was already on his tongue. Still, to his surprise, he somehow couldn't find it in himself to lie to her. If anyone would not judge him for his drunken tale, it might be the girl sitting in front of him.

Her eyes were wide, this time with curious expectation, the usual fear completely gone and he mused how beautiful a woman she might turn into one of these days. She had been a pretty child and she was even lovelier now on the cusp of womanhood.

If he were a bard, he'd probably liken her to a rosebud, petals tightly closed, fragile and unripe, but with the promise of breath-taking beauty, visible in the lines of her face, in the barely developed curves of her young body.

"Have you ever heard of fairies?" he asked.

She seemed to look inward for a while, then nodded.

"Old Nan used to tell us tales about them, back in Winterfell."

Her voice trailed off at that, suddenly thick with tears that glittered in her eyes but weren't shed.

"The kind that grants three wishes, I mean," he clarified when she remained silent, lost in what he supposed were memories.

"It's said they are sent from the Old Gods," she continued after a moment, "to good people who are pure of heart, to fulfil their most heartfelt wishes."

The words sank in somewhat slowly, but when he had fully grasped what she'd been saying, he snorted. Then laughed. Long and loud and the more he laughed the more the thought amused him. His laughter sounded beastly in the quiet of the godswood and he could see that he had both scared and angered her, but he couldn't help it.

"Oh hells," he wheezed. "Good and pure of heart...," he interrupted himself with another bout of hilarity, "that fairy must have been more hammered than I was, when she picked me!"

Her eyes rounded again.

"You were visited by a fairy?" She asked. "This...," she gestured to his face, "this was one of your wishes?"

He nodded. "To my defence," he felt it necessary to add, "at the time I believed it to be a drunken dream. I mean... how could I suspect this was real? I still half-believe this is a dream."

A little sad smile played around her lips and she nodded, as if she too sometimes thought – or rather wished – all of this was only a dream. A very bad one.

Then excitement sparked in her eyes, an intrigued curiosity that made her look much more a child than she was.

"What else did you wish for?"

If he still had the ability to blush with embarrassment, he would have done so at this. Still, he didn't mind telling her, because she might well be the only person in the world who would not ridicule him for what he was about to tell her.

"Like a said, I was so bloody fucking drunk I couldn't even see straight," he said, "So when that little golden thing started dancing in front of my eyes, I sort of wished I wouldn't like wine so much, so things like this wouldn't happen to me."

The girl tilted her head slightly to the side, biting her bottom lip and visibly trying not to laugh at his misfortune.

"So you can't drink wine anymore?"

His lips twisted in a self-deprecating sneer. It wasn't like he couldn't see the irony in his situation all by himself, without her looking as if she would burst from kept-in laughter any moment. "Looks like it. Most likely will be dead of thirst not too long hence."

Her eyes lit up at that and he wondered for a moment if it was the thought of his imminent demise that cheered her, when she sprung up and rummaged in the little satchel at her side to produce a well-used pewter cup. Then she half-ran, half skipped to where he had heard the murmur of water before and came back a heartbeat later, holding the cup out to him.

"Please try this, then," she said smilingly. "It's the best water you can get in King's Landing."

He almost told her he wasn't one for drinking water, but the expectant joy on her face made him nod and take the cup from her. As he brought it to his lips, he half-expected to be once again assaulted by the wave of nausea he felt every time he smelled wine, but there was nothing, just a faint tang of freshness that suddenly made him realize how truly parched he was.

The cool liquid went down his throat more smoothly than the best of wines he'd ever tasted. Fresh and sweet and cooling. Reviving him as if it was some sort of magic potion. Which, considering the source, might not be entirely untrue.

If fairy-tales were to be believed, and he rather feared some of them just might, water from the godswood was supposed to have special healing capabilities.

"More," he demanded, holding the cup to her once again, only belatedly realizing his lack of manners. "Please."

She nodded and obediently fetched him another cup... and another.

"Don't drink so hastily," she admonished with a smile when he was on his fourth cup. "The water is so cold; you might give yourself a headache."

The words had barely been out of her mouth, when he did indeed feel a sort of pulling, weird ache between his eyes that made him groan.

Sansa took the cup from his hands and drank the rest of the water. He was sure she placed her lips exactly where his had been before.

The pain behind his forehead vanished after mere moments and he took his time watching her while she daintily sipped her water.

"What would you have wished for, little bird, if she had come to you?" he asked and then wished he hadn't when he saw the look on her face. The pained frown, the tears once again gathering in her eyes, the unhappy downturn of her mouth.

What a bloody stupid question! It was clear as day what she would wish for.

"I'd wished I hadn't been so stupid as to betray my father's plans to Cersei. Wished we could have managed to flee from here, father, Arya and I."

It was a disturbing discovery to hear she blamed herself for all this, thought it was her fault, when all she had done was unwittingly set something in motion that others had brought to a bloody end, he himself among those who'd slaughtered the members of the Stark household man by man.

The evil wasn't with her innocent attempt at doing the right thing, but with those remorselessly using her error in judgement to further their own ends.

"Even fairies cannot change the past," he said, choked by an unfamiliar feeling of guilt. "Or so I've been told."

Her gaze fell to her hands, tightly clasped around her cup and she nodded with a bent head, looking as if once again her hopes had been shattered, prompting him to somehow think of how to make things better for her, offer help in some way.

"I've one wish left," he began, but didn't know how to continue. He still had no idea what to wish for and maybe giving her his wish would not be the worst thing he could do. "Maybe you can have it."

"You cannot give your last wish to me," she said as if it was some sort of law he should know about. "Fairies only fulfil wishes that are close to your own heart."

"One of those buggering fairy rules again, isn't it?" he grumbled.

She smiled bravely at him, masking the pain he'd seen before.

"Are there more?" she asked. "Rules, I mean."

"No changing the past, no wishing for someone to die and no wishing for more wishes," he recounted what he remembered, much to his own surprise in some detail, considering how out of it he had been at the time.

Sansa nodded, as if trying to memorize the information, as if this was something bound to come up in a polite conversation or as a test from some overly strict septa.

He touched the left side of his face, recognizing a mad compulsion to make sure it was still alright and found that it already bristled again. There was a slight rasp as his fingernails scratched over the faint stubble.

"Guess I could grow a beard now," he said into the quiet between them. Not the most thrilling of topics, but he for one had enough of talking about fairies.

Sansa's head snapped up and she made a face that clearly communicated what she thought of that particular notion.

"No?" he asked, more amused by her reaction than he should be. The girl had spent her childhood surrounded by bearded men. No one shaved in the North.

"No," she said decisively, shaking her head.

Then she stood and reached out a hesitant hand.

"May I?"

The ability to speak having deserted him at the prospect of Sansa Stark willingly putting a hand on him, he could only nod his approval.

Like a butterfly's wing, her hand fluttered over and settled on his cheek, while her eyes searched his face as if trying to find a trace of its former ugliness.

"I've never dared asking, but... did it hurt?"

Desperately, he swallowed to be able to speak again.

"Before, I mean," she clarified when he didn't answer. "It looked as if it did."

"It did," he rasped, loathe to remember the feeling of waking to the realization he'd slept too long on the wrong side, the constant throbbing of pain when one of the crevices had become inflamed after something or other had gotten into it. The crunch of sand and dirt between his teeth when a gust of wind had found its way through one of the holes in his cheek into his mouth. The trouble he had to eat properly. The way every facial expression was an ordeal.

The never ceasing irritation at the stupid buggering incontrollable twitch at the corner of his mouth.

"I understand why you wished for this," she whispered, her hand ever so slightly caressing his face. "It must have been horrible."

It had been, she had the right of it. Fuck his looks, fuck what other people thought of him, nothing of this mattered in the light of the fact that he was whole again, healthy and free of pain. How had he not thought of that before? How had it not been the first thing to value?

The enormity of the change slowly descended on him as his mind began to grasp the true extend of all this. The lack of pain, the absence of all the little and larger indignities that had been so much part of his life, he could not even imagine how it would be without them.

Unbidden, unwanted and to his utter embarrassment, hot wetness shot to his eyes and flowed over before he could even so much as close his eyes to stop it.

His instincts raged at him to turn away from her to hide his shame. To growl and snap at her that he had no need of her pity. His wounded pride urged him to sneer at her how it was she found her compassion and care now of all times when he had turned handsome.

He did neither.

Even in his state, he had no choice about giving honesty its due. She had not dared to ask before, she had said so herself and there was no one but himself who'd been the cause for her hesitation. The question had been there, as had been her compassion and she would have given it to him earlier if he'd not behaved like the rabid dog he was.

Her thumb caught the one tear that rolled down his cheek and when he opened his eyes again, he found her face much closer to his than it had been before, her lips parted, her eyes shining with wetness and with something strange he could not name.

He raised his face to her, waiting, wanting. Child or not, the craving for her touch was a palpable thing in him, as if he needed whatever she would offer in much the same desperate way as the water she had given him a few minutes ago.

Slowly, carefully, she bent down to him and ghosted the lightest of kisses over his lips.

A kiss that broke something inside him, snapped the leash that bound him to his perceived purpose, destroyed the last vestige of loyalty he felt for his masters. Broke all that and rebuilt something much stronger, something centred around the wish he'd long since felt to protect her, come what may.

Gently, as not to scare her, he put his hands around her slim waist and lifted her sideways onto his lap, then wrapped his arms around her as he always had longed to do, enveloping them both in his cloak. Instead of fighting his hold as he had feared she would, she cuddled against him without the slightest hesitation, rested her head trustingly against his shoulder and drew her legs up until she lay curled against him like a kitten, so completely enclosed in his embrace, no one seeing him would have even noticed her. If there ever was a time to be grateful for being the big, ungainly ox he was, it was now.

He felt her fingers claw into the fabric of his tunic shortly before a trembling shook her and warm wetness seeped through to his skin from where her face rested against him. Not quite knowing what else to do, he tightened his arms around her and pressed a kiss to her hair.

She snuggled closer and her nails bit through his tunic as she held on to him when great sobs shook her slight frame and he could only respond with holding her closer, tighter, hoping she would tell him should he start to crush her. Patiently, he waited until the storm would blow itself out.

Meanwhile, dusk had turned to night and here and there a star blinked through the canopy of the trees, the serenity only broken by the chirping of a lonely cicada, the murmur of the spring and Sansa's half-smothered sobs.

"Shall we go back?" he asked when it appeared as if she was done crying.

The shake of her head was more felt than seen.

"I'd like to stay for a while longer," she whispered, tears still evident in her voice. "I've not been held like this for so long."

...

tbc


	4. Farewell

**_Chapter 4: Farewell_**

"The longer you'll keep him waiting, the worse it will go for you," he told her, although he could already see she didn't need the warning.

She'd opened the door to him with a smile today, a smile that had sent a shockwave of warmth through him.

This morning, he had woken in a much better state than he usually did, feeling actually rested and alert. Before he'd known what he was doing, he'd emptied every wineskin in his possession, rinsed and washed them until he could not detect any smell of wine anymore. Then he'd made his way to the godswood to fill them again with the water from the spring, drinking his fill of it while he was there.

From then on, however, the day had gone downhill. A raven had come with tidings of a crushing defeat the Lannister forces had suffered a few weeks before at the hands of Robb Stark and Joff had all but foamed at the mouth at the news. Losing no time, he had immediately sent Sandor to fetch "the Stark bitch".

Thus remembering why he was at her door in the first place, the answering smile he was about to give her did not make it to his lips and the warmth he'd felt at her greeting had turned to cold ashes.

"Joffrey wants to see you and you'd better be quick," he'd rasped instead of a greeting and watched as her smile froze and then vanished, just as the bloom on her cheeks and the lively spark in her eyes.

It felt disconcertingly like watching someone die.

"Tell me what I've done," she asked in a small voice, brittle and broken, as they made their way to their destination.

"Not you, your kingly brother."

"Robb's a traitor," she recited what had been beaten into her before. "I had no part in what he did."

"They trained you well, little bird," he said, tempted almost beyond being able to resist to swoop her up into his arms as he had done the night before and see to it that no harm came to her. He had no idea what Joffrey wanted to do to her, but judging from the mood he'd left him in, it would probably bad. Really bad.

He conducted her to the lower bailey, where a crowd had gathered around the archery butts. They had to step around a half-dead cat on their way to the king, the furry thing mewling piteously, a crossbow quarrel through its ribs.

Sandor pulled a face. If he had a gold dragon for every cat Joff had tortured to death while he was in his service… well, he wouldn't be much richer than he was already, but still. It would be quite a sum.

Dontos came up to them and whispered encouragement to Sansa, only serving to make the girl more nervous.

Joffrey stood in the center of the throng, winding his showy, ornate crossbow.

Sansa jerked out of his grasp and threw herself to her knees, right there into the dirt of the yard, despite the care she had given her nice dress before.

"Your Grace."

Joffrey gave her a cold look.

"Kneeling won't save you now," he sneered, "get her up, dog."

As gently as he could do without anyone noticing, he grasped her upper arm and helped her up, his mind frantically casting about for a way to get her out of this. The way Joff's eyes glittered with hatred and malice, Sansa would be beaten and bloodied before the boy let her go.

The thought of seeing her in pain, of seeing her bleed, was like knife to his intestines, twisting and burning and filling him with a pained, helpless rage that had no outlet short of killing Joffrey to spare Sansa. Which would be both their death.

Still, he had to help her… somehow.

"Ser Lancel," Joffrey demanded. "Tell her of this outrage."

Lancel did as being bid, spouting a bunch of nonsensical bullshit everyone with brains would see for a horrid exaggeration, if not an outright lie. Knowing Stafford Lannister for years, Sandor was quite sure it had not taken the Young Wolf too much of an effort to get the upper hand on that self-important fool.

Sansa kept quiet as the king barked at her for a statement and only defended her dead wolf when Joffrey called the pup a monster that had savaged him. The knife in Sandor's gut gave another twist as he remembered how ill they had already treated her then, killing what was no more than a pup to spite her, spite the Starks.

Eddard Stark had been a bloody blind fool to continue on their way after that.

Joffrey kept bragging about people he killed and Sandor was almost relieved that maybe this was all that would happen when the command "Dog, hit her!" reached his ears, making him freeze.

The girl lifted her eyes to him, not in supplication, not begging for mercy, but with a dead, resigned acceptance.

He wouldn't, he swore to himself. Not her, not like this. He would not lift a hand to her even if this was the first and last time he disobeyed a command.

"Let me beat her!" Dontos shouted, excitedly swinging his mock morning-star.

Sandor felt no relief as he watched her being humiliated, sticky pink juice messing up her hair, running down her white skin.

Rage built and boiled, even as he saw the hope in her face, the expectation that maybe Joffrey would be satisfied with this.

He knew Joffrey for too long to harbour the same hope.

"Boros, Meryn," Joffrey gestured to the two oafs standing next to him.

At once, they roughly shoved Dontos out of the way, seizing Sansa by the arms.

"Leave her face," Joffrey commanded. "I like her pretty."

As if time had slowed to a crawl, Sandor watched as Boros drew his fist back for a punch aimed for Sansa's belly.

 _I wish she was safe,_ he thought, anguished, _I wish she was far away from here. Back with her brother, her mother._

Golden dust rained around him as he watched Sansa double over after Boros' hit and only then did he realize that he could do that. Wish for that. It was as heartfelt as anything he'd ever wished for and that fucking fairy better make good on her promise.

 _Don't dawdle_ , he barked at her in his thoughts, _do it right now, don't wait a night or any of your magical bullshit._

There was a short silence, but then a clear and slightly distressed voice sounded in his head.

 _I cannot do this with everyone looking on, maybe you can distract them._

His back teeth almost cracked as he gritted them, almost mad with fury when he heard Sansa scream as Boros's sword cracked across her thighs.

 _I'll make you pay for this, you craven swine_ , he thought. _Tomorrow in the training yard, you'll bleed for this._

"Enough," he said, an intended bellow that came out rasping and brittle, his throat too closed by the turmoil inside him.

His puny attempt at a distraction only drew everyone's attention for a split of a second before they turned to their victim again and before he could so much as step between them, they had followed Joff's command and half-torn her dress from her.

He took another step, inwardly cursing the stupid-ass fairy for not doing anything, when suddenly another voice cut through the throng.

"What is the meaning of this?"

All eyes went to the Imp who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, his pet sellsword in tow and a man who didn't look much different from how he himself had a couple days ago, burned and disfigured.

Quickly, before anyone could take note of it, Sandor unfastened his cloak, strode to Sansa's side and wrapped it around her.

"You'll be safe in a moment," he whispered to her. "Tell your brother I expect him to take good care of you, will you?"

She stared at him out of red-rimmed eyes, cheeks blotchy from crying and her hair wet with melon juice and stuck to her face. Somewhere on the periphery of his awareness, the Imp squabbled with Blount, but he didn't pay them any attention.

Golden dust shimmered around them and at this, a spark of realization made Sansa's eyes widen.

"Your wish," she whispered and looked as if about to say more, when suddenly his arms were empty, the girl gone and the only trace left a faintly glowing residue of gold on his fingers.

"Farewell," he said quietly to no one in particular and then, "she's gone."

 _Yes, she's gone,_ the fairy's voice tinkled in his mind. _She's where you wished her to be, with her family._

"She's gone," he said more loudly, but people were still watching the spectacle between the Imp and his nephew. "She's gone," he hollered, a shout that was almost triumphant.

Everyone's eyes went to him.

"Find her," Joffrey screeched and Tyrion said almost to same thing to his men.

Blount and Trant went off in a hurry, so did the Imp's sellsword.

Sandor, not in the least willing to have to talk to either the king or the Hand, took himself off as well, pretending to look for Sansa.

He found Blount hastening towards Sansa's chambers, quite the logical choice, and barked at him that he would look for her there. So Blount was given no other choice than to take his searching elsewhere.

Stepping into her rooms, it felt odd to think she'd been in there no longer than half an hour ago.

Around him, her smell still lingered, lemon and ice and innocence and he smiled to himself, suddenly joyfully relieved at the thought she was safe from further abuse, safe back with her family.

At least he hoped she was.

"She is," a chirpy voice said next to his ear.

A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth and since there was no one else to witness it, besides a tiny magical being, he gave into the temptation.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his own little fairy perching on his shoulder. This time, he made no move to shoo her away.

"I dropped her right in the courtyard of Riverrun."

He tried to imagine the scene, tried to imagine what she would tell everyone how it had come about that she had been deposited right into their midst. She might want to be careful with her explanation, he thought, still grinning like an idiot.

"Thank you," he said. "Guess that means I didn't waste _all_ of my wishes."

"No one says the other two were wasted," the fairy chirped. "Sansa certainly didn't."

He sighed, remembering Sansa's curiosity about his wishes, her barely hidden amusement and her understanding compassion.

His gaze went over her belongings. The discarded dresses she had pulled out of her wardrobe, frantically trying to decide which one to wear, the various implements on her dressing table for prettying herself up. The comb she had hastily drawn through her hair, a few silky hairs still entwined in it.

Would she need any of this where she was now? Would she miss it?

Her comb was in his hand before he finished the thought. A pretty and fragile thing it was, much like its owner. Made in the North, no doubt, it was delicately whittled from whalebone, enameled with mother-of-pearl.

Maybe she'd would want this one, he thought and pocketed the comb. Maybe there was a way to get it to her.

"You could have wished for her, you know?" the fairy piped up again. He had almost forgotten about her still being there.

"I might as well have held her down and raped her for all the say she would've had in it," he gave back.

In truth, the thought had never crossed his mind. Well, it had, but it had been repellent to him from the start. He could imagine no greater torture than being left wondering for the rest of his life whether she was with him because of his wish or because she really cared for him. It would have driven him mad.

"There should be some of your bloody rules about wishes like that," he said. "It seems worse than just wishing for someone to die."

The fairy nodded, as if truly contemplating his words.

"You're a good man, Sandor Clegane," she finally said.

"Is that why you chose me, because I am such a fucking good man?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her shrug her tiny bewinged shoulders

"I have my own orders to follow, it's not me who does the choosing," she said.

"The Gods, then?"

"I think that's what you call them, yes."

He shook his head. Why any of the Gods, old or new, would want to meddle with his life was beyond him and thinking about it made him weary.

"What do they want from me?"

"Their plans are nothing I am privy to," she said, "your guess is as good as mine, but I think there are still things for you to accomplish."

Maybe something had been accomplished already, he thought as he let his gaze wander over the chamber in which Sansa has lived. And every other bridge he'd cross if and when he came to it.

"Will she remember any of this?" he asked, indicating the chamber, the room and the holdfast at large with one sweeping gesture.

The fairy leaned her head to the side, looking at him as if seeing much more than he was aware was there.

"Do you want her to?" she finally asked.

He braced his hands next to the small window of Sansa's chambers, looking outside, down onto the bustle of the yard, where Golden Cloaks were now apparently helping in the search for Sansa.

Did he want her to remember all she'd suffered here? No, he truly didn't. Memories could be cruel; no one knew this better than he did. Suppressed by day by pure will and at night by copious amounts of wine, they could not quite drive you insane, but they were always there, lingering, infesting your dreams with their ugliness, poisoning your soul until you were as bitter and resentful as you never wanted to be.

He'd not wish that on anyone, least of all someone as pure and sweet as her.

"No," he said.

The unblinking stare out of golden eyes never wavered from him.

"Do you want her to remember _you_?"

Pain seized his heart in a sudden grip, while the scene from a few nights before played in his mind. The innocent ghost of a kiss, the body curled so trustingly against his, young and fragile and so much in need of the one thing he had craved, too: a gentle touch, an unselfish show of affection and care.

The pain in his chest made him irritable, though.

"Do I get a say in it?" he barked at the fairy. "I've no wishes left, have I?"

The fairy fluttered up from her perch on his shoulder and made to fly away, but then turned again.

"You should always know which wishes and dreams are closest to your heart," she said with a smile. "Only then can you decide on the right way to choose for yourself. It might not get you all you want, but maybe it'll get you what you need."

...

tbc


	5. The Lost Daughter

**_Chapter 5: The Lost Daughter_**

Sunlight blinded her as Sansa opened her eyes after what had felt as if she had flown through a pitch black tunnel for an eternity. Only that right now, it didn't feel like an eternity anymore, it felt as if it had only lasted a heartbeat.

She could still feel Sandor Clegane's arms around her, wrapping her in his cloak. Her belly hurt from where Ser Boros' fist had hit her and the backs of her things smarted and stung. Sticky melon juice still trickled down her face.

 _The fairy could've cleaned me up a bit_ , she thought impulsively, only to chide herself for being an ungrateful wretch.

As her eyes adjusted, she took a look around.

She had been deposited on what seemed the inner bailey of a fairly large castle. Men-at-arms bustled to and fro and she couldn't supress a cry of joy when she saw them wearing Stark colours.

One of the men turned at her cry and then eyed her with disdain.

"What's wrong with you, girl? Go back to where you belong."

Red heat shot to her face as she imagined what she must look like; her hair a mess and wrapped in the Hound's cloak as if she had nothing else to dress with.

"I rather hope I am where I belong," she said, her voice only slightly wavering. "I am Sansa of House Stark..."

The man in front of her threw his head back and let out a bellowing laugh.

"Sure you are!" He said between guffaws. "And I am Tywin Lannister. Now take yourself off and quick or I'll make you."

"Sansa?" a disbelieving voice sounded behind her. "Sansa Stark?"

Turning, she found herself faced with a man nearly as tall and broad as the Hound. Greatjon Umber, if she recalled correctly.

"Lord Umber," she said, inclining her head to him for all the world as if she had just met him at her father's court.

"Bugger me sideways, it's really you!" the big man shouted. "Your mother will be beside herself!"

He made as if to grab her and sling her over his shoulder to bodily carry her to her mother and Sansa couldn't fight the sudden impulse to step back, out of the reach of his outstretched hands.

Her hesitation brought him up short and he cleared his throat, obviously embarrassed by his own exuberance.

"I'll lead you to her, my lady," he said then, bowing his head.

She barely even heard the apology of the man who'd laughed at her, when the enormity of the realization that she'd see her mother again in a matter of only a few minutes almost took her legs out from under her.

Only moments before, she'd stood in front of Joffrey, fearing they would kill her, and now…

All this was happening so very fast, with no time to prepare, no time to look forward, to rejoice at the mere prospect, no time to think of what to say and do. No time for her to believe that all of this wasn't just a dream.

…

She had imagined the reunion with her family about a million times during her stay in King's Landing. The happiness of her mother, the quiet joy of her brother, her own serene enjoyment of both.

What she had not expected was for herself to start crying piteously the moment the shock and disbelief on her mother's face had given way to endless relief and she had run, crying and laughing at the same time, towards her to envelop her into a tight embrace that felt as if she never meant to let her go again.

Against her own best efforts, Sansa just fell apart, wept and sobbed until she was almost sick with it, her eyes burning and her stomach cramping.

"Oh my poor little girl, what did they do to you?" her mother asked over and over again, but Sansa just couldn't answer, too choked from crying, every attempt at speaking interrupted by pitiful, hiccupping sobs.

"Who brought you here?" her brother inquired sternly. "Why did they leave you in such a state?"

Already they had discovered the torn dress beneath the Hound's cloak, her mother had feathered trembling fingertips across the cut on her lip and the bruise beneath.

Fresh sobs shook her and suddenly she fervently wished the Hound would've just come with her. Why had he not wished for both of them to disappear? He surely wouldn't have dissolved into tears, he would have thought of what to say and how to explain.

"Give the poor lass some space to breathe," the Greatjon's deep bass could be heard from across the room. "Surely a bath and a bed will do her more good than a thousand questions."

Her mother's wet cheeks pinked at the admonition, but since they truly were wise words, she straightened and called for the servants, gave a couple of orders the servants scrambled to fulfil at once and then wrapped her arm around her once more to conduct her out of the room and upstairs.

"I'll take care of you, sweetling," she said, which gave Sansa a weird turn, because the last time she'd heard that endearment, it had come from Lord Baelish.

…

Her crying fit had turned to apathy as she was peeled out of her destroyed dress, her mother doing her best not to appear too distressed at the marks of abuse on her body. Sansa only shortly found a sliver of energy again as the maids were ordered to take and burn the ruined dress together with the cloak she had had wrapped around herself.

"No," she croaked out of a tear-sore throat. "I need the cloak. Please leave me the cloak."

"Sansa, it bears the sigil of Joffrey's kingsguard, surely you don't want..."

"I need it, mother please, don't..."

If she had tears left, she would have cried again at that point, but her mother's face dissolved into pained softness as she took the cloak out of the maid's hand and placed it on the foot of what Sansa supposed would be her bed.

"As you wish, Sansa," her mother said quietly. "I'll leave it here."

With the crisis averted, Sansa sank into apathy again, enjoying the feel of her mother's gentle hands washing her as if she was still a small child. Then massaging her scalp, washing her hair with a reverence as if she had already thought she'd never do this again.

The feel of once again having her hair combed and braided by her mother almost broke her again, but by then a curious weightlessness had settled over her, as if she was floating on cloudy dreams.

Wonderful dreams where she was safe with her family, cared for by her mother, saved by a good man who was pure of heart.

At last, tucked into bed, snuggled warmly into a soft nightgown and with the scratchy wool of the Hounds cloak wrapped around herself, darkness took her into the oblivion of a dreamless sleep.

…

Sunlight danced on her eyelids as she woke, disoriented at the strange room she found herself in, but comforted nonetheless by the smell and feel of Sandor Clegane's cloak surrounding her.

Slowly, carefully, like a servant that didn't mean to disturb but had business in your chambers anyway, reality crept into her mind and with it the knowledge of where she was and why.

With infinite care, she tested her feelings, trying to see if they would swamp and smother her again as they had before she had fallen asleep, or if they had left her empty and drained.

What she found was mostly bewilderment, a sense of vertigo at everything having changed so quickly she had still not adjusted to it.

 _You'll be safe,_ Clegane's rough voice sounded in her head, but as she examined her feelings, she found she didn't exactly feel safe. She knew herself to be surrounded by Stark forces, protected as well as was possible, but she also knew there was a war raging outside the walls of this castle and surely Joffrey would be livid once he found she was gone for good.

For a reason she could not quite grasp, she doubted she'd ever feel safe again as long as she wasn't back behind Winterfell's grey walls.

She felt relief, though. Relief at being out of the Lannister's clutches, away from Joffrey's mean cruelty. A golden sliver of happiness was there, too. At having her mother back, no matter how detached she had felt last night. Maybe she just needed to relearn closeness and trust. Maybe she just needed to learn to shed the armour of courtesy, the mask of falseness.

Memories of how she had been taught to wear both armour and mask intruded cruelly into her thoughts and she shivered, despite still being warmly bundled into bed. As she drew the cloak firmer around herself, the scratchy feeling of the wool anchored her, reminded her that she was as safe as she could be, no matter that it didn't quite feel that way.

 _Sandor Clegane_ , she thought as she inhaled deeply. The sound of his name in her mind calmed her as much as his cloak against her body did. How she had gone from fearing the Hound to feeling that his arms where the safest place in the world, she had no idea. Already, their time in the godswood seemed too far away, unreal and dreamlike. Had he really cried when she touched him? He, who scoffed at weakness? Had he really told her about a fairy and three wishes? Had he truly been whole again, his face easy to look upon, or had she just imagined it because his exterior suddenly hadn't matched anymore what she thought of him? Had he truly laughed at being chosen by the Gods, truly taken a cup of water from her like a man dying of thirst in a heated desert?

Startled, she found that if it weren't for her being here, in this unfamiliar bed, this unfamiliar castle, she would surely believe that none of this had truly happened.

A wave of gratefulness washed through her as she contemplated what he had done for her sake. She had never found the courage or the time to ask him, but she wondered what he would have done with his last wish had it not been for her.

He didn't seem like one who would wish for riches or for power. Would he have wished for fame on the battlefield, for being invincible and even stronger than he already was? Maybe stronger than his brother? Or would he have wanted adventures in far-away lands, seeing the wonders the world had to offer beyond the shores of Westeros?  
Or did he dream of keep all his own, maybe a lordship and with a pretty, highborn lady at his side?

The latter thought displeased her and made her tummy turn weirdly, but still it made her realize the true extend of his sacrifice.

How would she ever be able to repay him?

Her grateful musings were cut short when she remembered that even should she ever be able to actually recompense his sacrifice, he was far away now, still among lions who hopefully would never find out how he had betrayed them.

"I wish you were here," she murmured, but it appeared no fairy was around to hear, so she finally lifted herself upright and yawned, waking the maid who had dozed in a chair next to her bed.

...

tbc


	6. Catching Up

**_Chapter 6: Catching Up_**

People seemed surprised when Sansa appeared in the great hall while they were about to eat their morning meal. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at her with wide-eyed, in some cases even open-mouthed surprise.

The maid who'd watched over her during the night had helped her into a dress that must have been one of her mother's. Made of a heavy, flowing material in various shades of blue, it was a bit too generous around her chest when before she had been barely able to lace her jerkin all the way up over her rapidly growing bosom.

 _You look almost a woman… face, teats…_

In front of the mirror in her chambers, she had turned a little to the side when she heard his gravelly voice in her mind, to see the swell of her breasts now favourably highlighted by the new dress. She asked herself if the Hound would have appreciated that, if he would have deemed her more than _almost_ a woman if he saw her now.

… _and you're taller, too._

During the night while she had slept, someone apparently had hastily taken in the length of the skirt a few inches, making the dress a little too short for her now. She smiled at the thought that even her own mother hadn't quite seen yet how much she had grown.

With her hair neatly combed and braided to form a sort of crown on top of her head, she probably looked way better now than she had yesterday, beaten and bedraggled as she had been then. Maybe this was why everyone was gaping.

"You've grown into quite a bonny lass, Lady Sansa," the Greatjon said at last, the first of the assembled people in the hall to find his booming voice. "At least they've not let you starve."

Suddenly insecure, Sansa looked down at herself to see if maybe she'd grown fat in the meantime for Lord Umber to say something like this. It was no secret that he liked women who were more on the voluptuous side.

Unbidden, her mind posed the question which sort of woman Sandor Clegane preferred.

Robb shot his bannerman an admonishing glance and then smiled tightly at her.

"Good morning, Sansa," he said and then his gaze and smile warmed a little. "You really look much improved this morning. "

Next to him, her mother got up from her seat. On her brother's other side, a petite and very pretty young woman looked at her with a genuine smile.

Sansa hadn't noticed much yesterday, could only really remember her mother's arms and her brother's voice and felt a bit ashamed that she had not even been able to properly greet everyone.

"Thank you... your Grace," Sansa said and curtseyed, then smiled as her brother made a somewhat sour, un-kingly face at hearing her form of address. Then he turned to the young woman next to him and gave her a smile of such warmth as she had never seen on the face of her brother.

"My wife, Jeyne," he said and looked at Sansa as if challenging her to find fault with his choice.

"It's an honour to meet you," Sansa said with a smile and gave another curtsey to the young queen.

In quick succession, Robb then introduced her to the rest of the assembled people; her uncles Edmure and Brynden, Jeyne's parents and brothers and his close circle of guards and advisors.

Then he related in terse, quick words how he had met his wife.

He stumbled over his explanation why he had been in need of Jeyne's comfort when staying at the Crag and Sansa caught her mother's anguished look as he did.

"I know about Bran and Rickon," she said then, bravely trying to hold back the tears that threatened. "Joffrey wasted no time telling me as soon as he heard."

The tension in the room, already palpable to begin with, seemed only to grow at her announcement, everyone in attendance at loss for words, her mother clearly trying not to dissolve into tears just as Sansa was.

Into the silence, suddenly a low growl could be heard, emanating – to Sansa's acute embarrassment – from her own stomach.

The Greatjon laughed loudly, breaking the tension as Sansa turned crimson.

"Well, give the girl a place at the table and something to eat, she sounds as if she'd soon go and eat one of us!"

There seemed to be some relief at the turn of events and everyone sat down again, tending to their abandoned breakfast.

Sansa found that she was indeed hungrier than she could remember she ever had been and fell on the offered honeyed porridge and scrambled eggs with only barely remembered manners.

"We hadn't expected you to be already up and about after the ordeal of your... journey," her mother said, looking at her with a slight smile.

Swallowing what had been in her mouth, Sansa shook her head.

"But my journey had not been an ordeal at all," she said happily.

Disbelief was plain on the faces of those looking at her and only then did Sansa realize that yes, her journey _should_ have been an ordeal. Two or three weeks – she didn't even know how long it took to get from King's Landing to Riverrun – on the run from Gold Cloaks and Kingsguard. Nights spent on the cold ground, eating Gods knew what, while trying to survive in a war-ravaged land where neither smallfolk nor innkeeps would be inclined to harbour a high-born fugitive on their premises.

If they asked her about all of this, she'd either better come up with a good lie or brave the dangers of telling the truth.

Quickly, she stuffed more food into her mouth so she would at least have a few moments before she surely was expected to answer all the questions people were probably burning to ask.

…

The questions had not been too long in coming and started as soon as the servants had cleared away the remnants of the meal. To her distress, neither the Westerlings nor Robb's guards and advisors had seen fit to give them some privacy, turning her account of her supposed journey into a rather public spectacle.

"Who brought you here?" Robb asked.

"Sandor Clegane did," she answered.

In the distressingly short amount of time she had to decide what to tell them, two things had been clear to her from the start.

For one thing, she would not tell what only she and Sandor Clegane would know to be the truth. There was no need for her family to suffer the embarrassment of everyone else thinking she'd turned insane during her captivity. She found herself doubting all that had happened more often than not, only knowing it to be true for the fact that she was indeed here at Riverrun. She could hardly expect anyone else to believe the tale of a fairy and three wishes.

For another, she would give credit where credit was due. Sandor Clegane had saved her and if nothing else, her brother and his men should know that. Should know they ought to be grateful to him. She owed him at least that much.

"The Hound?" her mother asked, disbelief heavily colouring her voice. "That pitiless butcher, who does everything the Lannisters bid him to do?"

Sansa swallowed. Apparently it would be harder than she'd thought to convince those she loved of Clegane's kindness. Should she tell them of how he'd taken her in his arms just to hold her? How he had comforted her as she dissolved into tears at the almost forgotten feeling of being surrounded by the strong arms of a man who would kill for you? Who – in the Hound's case – already _had_ killed for her? His embrace had reminded her so much of her father, her grief for him – a wound only barely scabbed over – had torn open again.

"He is not a bad man," she said and noticed at once that the claim fell on deaf ears.

Robb glared at her then and she almost shrunk from the anger radiating off him. She'd never seen her brother so livid.

"He's not?" Robb hissed. "He all but threw you at our feet; bleeding, bedraggled and half-naked and he vanished so quickly afterwards we couldn't find him even a quarter of an hour after you came here and you are still defending him? What... _else..._ did he do to you?"

Sansa could feel her blood draining out of her face, her jaw slackening and her eyes open wide when she caught the gist of what her brother was suggesting.

By trying to make him a hero, she had made Sandor Clegane a villain in their eyes. Even more of one than they already thought him to be. A man who had abused her and possibly even...

She shook her head mutely as the full implication of her brother's outburst sank in.

"No," she said thinly. "It wasn't like that at all, he saved me, he helped me."

"Do they still have Arya?" her mother inquired quietly. "Is that what they're holding over your head, what makes you lie to us?"

"Arya? No! I haven't seen her since father's death, I always hoped she'd gotten away somehow. She's not... she's not here?"

Her mother pressed her hand over her mouth while her eyes filled, shaking her head.

"Why did he bring you here, what do the Lannisters mean by that?" Lady Westerling inquired shrilly, apparently greatly distressed at the notion that her reappearance was somehow a clever Lannister ploy.

"I wasn't brought here on the Lannisters' orders," she said, her voice wavering under the onslaught of disbelieving and disapproving looks everyone was levelling at her. She felt herself judged and the feeling made her only more insecure and surely she had already started to look guilty of what she was being accused of, whatever that might be. "He brought me back to help me, nothing else."

"Help you," Robb sneered again. "If beating and raping you is his notion of being helpful…"

Her teeth started to chatter and she prayed her tears at being treated so callously and so unjustly would stay where they were.

"You take that back, Robb Stark," she demanded as firmly as she was able to, her lips quivering with the effort it took to keep the tears at bay. "He did _not_ … violate me and I will not have you say so. Your words dishonour me as much and more than what you accuse him of."

A flush of red washed over her brother's cheeks, but anger still burned in his eyes.

With two long strides, he was right in front of her, grabbing her chin non-too gently and turning it so her mangled lips and the bruise flowering on her chin were exposed to the light coming from the windows.

"Those bruises are not older than two days," he hissed at her. "So stop. Lying. To me!"

At this, she could not hold back the tears anymore and Robb abruptly let go off her chin when he saw them rolling down her cheeks.

A look of disgust replaced the anger on his face.

"How many horses did you have?" he asked.

"Two," she answered, barely audible.

"From the king's stables or did he buy a horse for you in King's Landing?"

She opened her mouth, but couldn't answer. Clegane had been right; she was a terrible liar. In this case, she didn't even know which of both was the more probable scenario.

"Did he pack provisions beforehand, or did you buy them on the road?"

"Robb, please…," her mother said at one point, but her brother just kept pressing her.

"Did you sleep outside or in inns? Did he bring a tent? Were you ambushed on your way? How did you make it through our lines? Why didn't you change your dress?"

Sansa shook her head, muted by her tears and her inability to answer even so much as a single question. She knew which impression she gave, could see it on the faces of the people staring at her, could see it in her brother's disgusted, ice-cold glare.

The questions ceased at last and for a while the room was almost completely quiet, the only sound her own sobs.

Robb ran a hand over his face and sighed, then turned to her again.

"Tell me the truth, Sansa. Has my own sister turned traitor against me?" he asked, sounding tired and beaten.

Shame; red, hot and suffocating shot to her face and closed her throat.

 _Robb's a traitor._

How often had she denounced her brother as a traitor, how often denied her love for him, her trust? Did he know about that? Had he heard?

She wanted to deny his accusation, wanted to assure him of her loyalty, but her own words, so often spoken to Joffrey, rang in her ears as loudly as a sept's bell and swamped her with guilt, once again taking her ability to speak.

"Escort her to her chambers," Robb barked at one of the men-at-arms guarding the door. "I'll continue this later."

…

At first she had cried. Thrown herself on her bed and buried her face into Clegane's cloak and sobbed until she was sick with it.

She had shed tears over the unfairness of her brother's accusations, the coldness of how he had handled her, the almost non-existent attempt of her mother to help her. Even now, she had not even come to her chambers to offer comfort.

But most of all, she'd wept in helpless fury about her own stupidity. Had her months in King's Landing not taught her anything at all? Here she was, believing herself in the bosom of a loving family, only to find she was still at a king's court and apparently, all the same rules applied.

Robb might not be Joffrey, was as far from being Joffrey as a man could be, but he still was king and the fact that she was his sister was but a minor consideration in the grand scheme of things. There would be no mercy for her if he decided she was a danger to his kingdom, a traitor.

She should have known that, should have been better prepared and less willing to shed her armour and her mask.

After a few hours, she had picked herself up from the bed, wrapped the cloak around herself and walked to the window, staring out onto the mighty river with tear-blinded eyes. There was an emptiness where her tears had been before and she stood there numb, unthinking, uncomprehending.

How had she managed to turn what should have been joyful into such a mess? How had she made her brother hate her, think her a traitor?

Maybe she should not have lied to him, but how was she to tell him the truth?

Behind her, a knock sounded at the door. Thinking it was a maid, she called for her to come in.

"Sansa."

She spun around to find herself face to face with her brother. Robb looked at her with sad eyes, taking in her tear-streaked face and the sodden handkerchief she had balled into her hand.

"Come with me, please," he said. "I need to show you something."

Mutely, she nodded, then wiped a hand over her face to get rid of her tears, replaced the cloak on the bed and stiffly took her brother's offered arm.

He didn't talk to her as he led her over the courtyard and then conducted her up to the battlements from where he pointed to a number of gibbets not too far off, seven corpses dangling from the ropes while crows feasted on their remains.

Sansa clapped a hand over her mouth, horrified when she saw that some of them wore the colours of House Karstark.

"What happened?" she asked after a moment. "Who did this?"

Her brother turned to her, his eyes hard, his mouth a thin line.

"I did this, Sansa," he said. "I had them hanged for the traitors they are and I personally put Rickard Karstark to the sword, a man who had been one of my staunchest supporters in this war."

She shook her head, not understanding, not wanting to understand. This felt too much like that time when Joffrey had shown her what he usually did with people who he thought to be traitors.

"Do you want to know why?"

In all honesty, she didn't want to know and nearly told him so. She'd seen her own father's head roll from the executioner's block, had seen it tarred and on a spike, had seen men maimed and hacked to pieces. None of this made her want to know why her own brother felt the need to hang and behead his allies.

Why he had turned into a killer.

Especially not when he thought her a traitor, too.

But she also saw the pain behind the cold hardness of his eyes, his need to tell her, so she nodded.

And so he told her.

Told her how he had hurt when he'd heard of Bran and Rickon's death. How Jeyne had comforted him and how he had decided to put her honour above his own after he'd deflowered her.

Told her of how he came back to Riverrun to find that his mother had let Jaime Lannister out of captivity, hoping he could be traded for Arya and herself. How her betrayal had destroyed him, how it had later forced his hand as the Karstarks took it upon themselves to take revenge on two boys instead of the Kingslayer and how that had forced him to show them that no one disobeyed a king without paying the price.

"I've won battle upon battle, Sansa," he said, his voice thick with grief. "But I am losing this war. I've lost Winterfell because I trusted Theon and I have no idea how and when to take it back. I do not know how to win back Walder Frey's trust and support after having broken my vow to marry one of his daughters."

He slammed a fist down on the stones of the crenels and Sansa winced in sympathy at the pain it must have caused him.

"I have only just turned sixteen," Robb went on, the words pouring out of him as if he was glad he'd found someone to listen to him. "I only ever lived at Winterfell and suddenly everyone is looking to me for the right decisions, when most of the time I feel like I am in over my head. Everyone is expecting me to be strong and decisive, even my own wife could not suffer me to show weakness beyond some personal grief for the death of my brothers."

He looked at the men swinging on their ropes and shook his head.

"And now my beloved sister is brought back to me, bleeding and beaten and in a torn dress and I know it was my decision to leave her to this."

Carefully, she put a hand on Robb's arm.

"It was not always that bad, only that one time," she said softly.

Robb huffed an unhappy breath and shook his head again.

"How am I to know right from wrong anymore, friend from foe? How am I to know who is on my side when my own mother betrays me and my own sister lies to me?"

Red heat suffused her face. She had lied to him, that much was true, but she had still no idea how to tell him the truth. She knew Robb well enough to know he'd never believe her.

"I cannot tell you the whole truth of how I got here," she ventured and his gaze sharpened, his mouth turned down at the corners. "Part of the truth is someone else's secret and it's not my place to reveal it."

A muscle in Robb's face jumped as he clenched and unclenched his jaw, gazing into nothingness.

"So that's how it is, we're keeping secrets from each other now?" he asked curtly.

Sansa stepped closer and put her hand over his. His skin was cold, but at least he made no move to shake off her touch.

"Shouldn't we rather have secrets between us instead of lies?"

Robb remained motionless.

"I swear to you on father's honour that this secret is nothing that concerns yourself or this war."

Finally, he gave an infinitesimal nod.

"What can you tell me then?"

"I spoke the truth that it is thanks to Sandor Clegane that I was brought here. I owe him a debt greater than I can tell you. He never once lifted a hand against me and I _am_ still a maiden."

Sansa saw his throat move as he swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment as if relieved.

"My wounds I received on Joffrey's orders from his guards," she continued, "but I was brought here so quickly, there was no time to change or clean up."

"How?"

Sansa remained mute, silently begging him to stop asking.

"I see," he said.

Eyes still on the hanged men, he turned his hand and gently clasped it around hers.

"Can you forgive me?", he asked. "For not doing anything I could to get you out of there?"

A selfish part of her wanted to say no, wanted to be obstinate and demand that his sister should have been Robb's first priority. But at the sight of the hanged men, she knew he had had decisions to make no boy his age should have to face. Decisions she herself would have made differently, but he _was_ king and maybe there were rules to being a lord or a king that she did not understand.

Her father had judged people as well and killed if he deemed it right and just.

 _All men are killers._

"Of course I do," she said with a sigh and turned to him.

Without any more words needed, she wrapped her arms around him and felt his around her as he crushed her to him with a sudden urgency that felt like desperation.

"I am so glad to have you back," Robb whispered against her hair, tears in his voice.

Unable to speak due to her own tears, she only nodded, holding him tighter.

...

tbc


	7. Visitors

**_Chapter 7: Visitors_**

Life settled into what counted for normalcy at Riverrun.

Sansa had quickly found out that her mother was still under some form of arrest for having freed the Kingslayer and thus not free to come and go where she pleased. Her mother mostly spent her time attending Hoster Tully on his sickbed, a duty Sansa was glad she was not expected to help with.

She knew the old man to be her grandfather, but could not muster any feelings for him. Even worse, his feverish ramblings about her aunt Lysa gave her nightmares, so her mother didn't press the point beyond the first few visits.

Robb mostly spent his time in meetings and councils, but still made some time for her in the evenings. He had taken to tell her about almost everything that had been discussed that day, as if glad to have someone who just listened instead of telling him what to do.

He told her that he had given orders to keep her reappearance a secret. There was no telling if an information of this magnitude could be concealed for long, especially with so many people already knowing, but he was convinced it would be better for her if the Frey's especially wouldn't learn of it before he had attempted to mend fences with them.

As Robb had predicted, a delegation from the Twins, with Lothar Frey leading it, arrived one day. Per her agreement with Robb, Sansa kept to her chambers, trying to busy herself with needlework.

When finally he came to her late that evening, Robb looked exhausted but somewhat hopeful.

"They've driven a hard bargain," he told her. "Uncle Edmure will wed one of Walder Frey's daughters, but the Freys will not suffer any delays when it comes to the wedding. We are to depart for the Twins as soon as possible and the wedding will take place the very day we will arrive."

Sansa felt insulted on her brother's behalf.

"Does he really think you will break this agreement?"

Robb smiled ruefully.

"I broke one before."

"You had no choice," she exclaimed. "Surely he has to understand that! You could not have left poor Jeyne dishonoured."

In the few days she had had to acquaint herself with her brother's wife, she had come to like the woman who was not that much older than herself, with whom she shared a lot of interests. They had already started to plan the weaving and embroidering of a tapestry depicting all of Robb's victories and heroics and discussed where it should be displayed once they'd be back at Winterfell.

A red flush washed over her brother's cheeks and his smile seemed to turn inward, to a memory most likely.

"I could have chosen not to dishonour her in the first place," he said.

Now it was Sansa's turn to blush.

She had seen the looks her brother gave his wife when he thought no one was watching, had seen the want, the hunger. And while Sansa was sure of her claim that she was still a maiden, she knew she had received a similar look herself not too long ago and had felt powerless against its pull.

Would she already be considered dishonoured by that one kiss? A kiss that had not been taken from her, but given of her free will? Would her honour be already considered to be besmirched by how willingly she had come into the Hound's arms? Would it matter to anyone beside herself that the kiss had felt as if she would have forever regretted not giving it and the embrace as if it had been as vital to her as the air she was breathing?

Had Robb felt the same way about Jeyne when he had taken her maidenhead?

"Did you really have a choice about that?" she asked quietly.

Her brother's gaze snapped towards her and he looked at her sharply, a question in his eyes.

She squirmed under his gaze, but kept her eyes on his. He did not voice what surely had to be on his mind, but she knew for a fact that her question had given away much more than she had intended.

"No," he finally said. "No, I think I didn't."

Then he sighed deeply and ran a hand through his hair.

"I will leave Jeyne here at Riverrun," he said then, deftly changing the topic. "I am sure Walder Frey would not stop needling if I bring her with me and while I could suffer slights against myself, I'm not so sure I could stand by idly if he embarrasses Jeyne."

Sansa nodded, thinking this a sensible decision, even though she knew for a fact that Jeyne would not be at all happy about it. She seemed as taken with her brother as he was with her and surely it would make them suffer to be apart. A fraction of this sort of pain she thought she knew about, because every time she thought of the Hound, an achingly empty hollow opened inside her chest. She could only imagine how much worse it would be for those two.

"You can choose to remain with her, if you wish," Robb continued, "We'll be off to the Neck after the wedding, trying to take the North back from the Ironborn with Lord Reed's help. If you decide to come to the wedding, you'll stay with mother at Seagard afterwards, as guests of Lord Mallister."

Sansa tried to picture all that lay ahead of them. The wedding, the fight for the North which would once again put her brother's life at risk. And she would be secluded in yet another unfamiliar castle, this time with only her mother for company.

A mother around which Sansa felt not quite at ease anymore. She'd grieved and prayed for her father, for her dead brothers, for her lost sister, but she knew her own grief couldn't hold up to what her mother must be feeling and she knew she alone could never make up for what her mother had lost. She would only ever be Sansa, she could neither replace Arya's daring or Bran's bravery or little Rickon's sweetness. Sometimes, unbidden and ugly, the question entered her thoughts if her mother would have preferred another of her children being returned to her in Sansa's stead.

It didn't help that she often found her mother watching her with narrowed eyes, as if she was waiting for something to appear that Sansa had so far managed to hide from her. She had no idea what it was exactly that her mother suspected, but her scrutiny troubled her. Just as much as it troubled her that for a second time since her arrival, she had been forced to save Clegane's cloak from the flames her mother wanted to consign it to.

Her mother had insisted it was unseemly that an unmarried maiden would keep a man's cloak in such high regard, especially a cloak belonging to an enemy. Even after Sansa had argued that the man who had saved her from captivity hardly deserved to be called the enemy, her mother impressed on her how much damage it could do to her reputation should servants choose to talk about her attachment to that cloak.

After some loud words from her mother and a few tears on her side, they had compromised on Sansa having to hide the cloak from prying eyes at the bottom of the chest in which she kept her linens. Every night, she took the object of that discussion out of the chest to sleep with it wrapped around herself, and then carefully put it back every morning, hoping her mother would forget about it entirely at some point.

Still, despite all those misgivings, she knew what her decision regarding the wedding would be.

"I want to be close to my family," Sansa said, trying to sound determined. "If you and mother go, I'll go, too. And I'll go to Seagard as well if that is your wish."

Relief was on Robb's face as he nodded, as if he had expected her to argue against his decision.

"The Frey's seem to have already heard that you disappeared from King's Landing," he told her. "It has caused quite a stir, they say. The court is ripe with speculation about who has taken you away and why and some even say there was magic involved."

He looked at her as if expecting her to deny or confirm those rumours and she very nearly did, but ended up only biting her lip with a feeling of guilt.

"Joffrey has declared you a traitor and thereby ended your betrothal," Robb continued.

At seeing one corner of her brother's mouth twitch, she couldn't help the delighted laughter that bubbled up inside of her.

Not that she had expected to still be betrothed to Joffrey after she had vanished, but it was a relief nonetheless that he wouldn't let the betrothal stand out of sheer spite.

Robb smiled at her amusement, but something seemed to still weigh on his mind.

"Tywin Lannister has sent ravens everywhere, promising to give your weight in gold to anyone who'd bring you back to King's Landing alive and unharmed."

The sudden spark of lightness died in her.

Her weight in gold. The price for the North. A fortune so staggering, every man in Westeros would want to get his hands on her to deliver her back to the Lannisters. Maybe even some of Robb's own men might be tempted and surely it was this Tywin Lannister had counted on. There were deserters on both sides of the fence.

 _I was right not to feel safe here_ , she thought.

"It's because they still think to kill you and it's me who is next in line to inherit, right?"

Robb closed his eyes and then nodded.

"They did not want to make you queen, but they surely meant to make you marry one of theirs to install in Winterfell."

Sansa stared at where she was bunching the fabric of her dress in her tightly clenched fists.

"I'd rather die," she said impulsively, but knew herself well enough to know that if she was still back in King's Landing, she would have meekly submitted to any marriage they would have forced her to consent to.

"When he bade me farewell, he said he expects you to take good care of me, to protect me," she said unhappily.

Her brother looked puzzled for a moment, apparently not clear on who "he" might be. When it occurred to him, his lips pressed into a thin line.

"I will protect you whatever it takes," he said, "I do not need a Lannister dog to tell me how to keep my sister safe."

"Do not call him that," she admonished, but with no heat to her words. She didn't want to argue with Robb, their newly won trust still seemed too fragile for that.

He rubbed a hand over his face.

"While we're at the topic of Clegane," Robb said as if he hadn't heard her. "It seems he's fallen from favour with the Lannisters, Cersei especially. From what we heard, she convinced Joffrey that he was somehow to blame for your disappearance, despite there being no proof."

Pain, deep and wrenching, took hold of her heart as she imagined what that would mean for him and she pressed both her hands to her mouth in horror as the pictures flashed through her mind. The black cells, torture and pain, her father's sword severing his neck from his broad shoulders.

Another strong man fallen to Ilyn Payne's blade for no other reason than having cared for her.

"No," she mumbled faintly, as if the word of protest could somehow undo what had probably already happened. Still, she could not imagine him being dead. She did not _feel_ as if he was dead, wherever that feeling was coming from.

He was a creature forged from fire, pain and steel, surely he could not be felled by something puny like Cersei's scheming and Joffrey's cruelty?

Then again, she had thought the same thing about her father.

"He's fine… I think," Robb said, putting a hand over hers. "They discharged him dishonourably from the Kingsguard and tasked him with finding you and bringing you back… or die trying. He is to be beheaded should he come back without you."

A quick wave of tremendous relief washed through her, but was immediately smothered when guilt and worry came to the fore again.

Sandor Clegane was an outcast now, kicked out by the masters he had served so faithfully on grounds of a claim they certainly couldn't prove. He had no allegiance now and no allies. No place where he would be safe.

She had no idea why Cersei of all people would turn against the Hound, when before it always seemed that she trusted him explicitly. She had given her firstborn into his protection and never looked as if she doubted her decision. What had changed between them? He surely could not have been so careless as to confide the truth about her disappearance to Joffrey's mother, could he?

Still, as much as she told herself that Cersei was to blame for the Hound's fate, she knew it was ultimately due to his kindness to her that he had lost his position and livelihood. She would never, ever be able to recompense him for any of that and that knowledge felt like a weight around her neck.

"Do I need to worry on that account?" Robb asked, cutting her anguished musings short.

"No," she said, without having to think about it. "He won't come after me."

The latter part came with a desolate feeling of sadness, one she knew her brother would not want to know about, so she banished it to the back of her mind.

Robb nodded and she felt a little proud that he listened to her judgement, despite her being so young.

"Looks like your speed of travel was truly marvellous," Robb continued after a while. "By the Freys' estimation, there is no way you already made it here. So for now, there are no additional demands that you are to wed one of theirs."

A gasp died in Sansa's throat as an invisible fist clamped around it. She had not even thought to consider this. Should she be handed to another this soon after the end of her betrothal to Joffrey? This time on command of her own brother?

Her right hand flew to her throat as if this would help with the constriction, but it didn't. She couldn't breathe and her vision started to wobble and swim while her ears felt as if stuffed with wool. Her chest expanded and heaved, desperately trying to get air into her lungs, but the only result was a thin, wheezing sound escaping from her mouth.

Robb's brow furled and then he hastily closed the distance between them, taking her face between his warm hands.

"Look at me, Sansa, look at me," he said to her, a mixture of a command and a desperate entreaty. "Breathe, please!"

She couldn't, she wanted to, but couldn't. The thought of once again going through all she had gone through; hopes burned to ashes, humiliation and the bleak outlook of being tied forever to someone who would turn into a monster in front of her eyes…

"Sansa, please," her brother said again, his eyes wide with fear. "I won't allow this; you hear me?"

Finally, her lungs started working again and she took a deep breath, sounding as if she had come up from staying too long under water.

"Do you hear me?" Robb demanded.

She nodded weakly.

Then her brother sunk to his knees in front of her and took both her hands in his. A king kneeling before her, she thought, disoriented.

"I swear on our dead father's honour that I will not see you wed against your will. I cannot promise I won't suggest matches to you that I would find favourable, but I will not command you."

It felt as if his words had lifted the rock that had tried to squash her chest and the sudden feeling of lightness brought tears to her eyes. She threw her arms around her brother's neck and quietly sobbed against his shoulder.

"Thank you, Robb," she whispered. "Thank you so much."

…

The day of their departure dawned grey and wet.

Sansa's belongings, including the Hound's cloak, had already been packed into traveling chests and taken down to the bailey to be loaded onto one of the many wagons that would travel behind the main host.

Her mother and Sansa would accompany Robb on horseback, a prospect Sansa wasn't looking forward to but was determined not to complain about.

At the moment, Robb was probably saying farewell to his wife. Jeyne had been inconsolable about being left behind and while she had said nothing with everyone present, Sansa was sure she had begged Robb to be taken with him when they were alone.

Waiting for the signal that the journey was to begin, she stood at the window of the chamber she had lived in for the past weeks, looking out onto the river that appeared like a stream of lead crawling through a landscape of wet greys and greens. Her mood was as grey as the weather.

Her grandfather had passed two days before and despite her lack of attachment to him, her mother's grief and tears had burdened her heart.

Black tidings had come from King's Landing as well. Stannis Baratheon had lost most of his army while trying to take King's Landing, going against not only the Lannisters but against the Tyrells as well who had decided to side with them after Renly's death.

Joffrey had a new bride in Margery Tyrell and Sansa found herself feeling sorry for the girl, despite the fact that she would not be alone and without protection like she herself had been.

The only part of this she took some comfort from was the fact that the Hound had already left King's Landing well before the battle at the Blackwater had started. They had heard that the Blackwater had burned green with wildfire that day, more men dying in the fire than died to swords and arrows. She could scarcely imagine the horrors it must have brought to anyone else, let alone someone who had already been burned.

Thoughts of her uncles upcoming wedding should have cheered her. There would be music and bards and people in nice dresses and she knew she would have looked forward to the occasion not too long ago, but she could feel nothing but unease and she had been plagued with frightful dreams during more than one night.

Despite her brother's and mother's frequent assurances, she didn't think that guest right was as holy a custom as they made it out to be. She'd seen first-hand that cruelty and hatred didn't keep to rules of civility and conduct; had seen how men who thought themselves slighted could turn into conscienceless monsters. The memory of Lady's and Mycah's death was still too fresh in her mind to have illusions about that, as were the events of the riots in King's Landing.

An age-old custom seemed a feeble protection against men's viciousness.

 _Knights are meant for killing_ , the Hound had said, and _killing is the sweetest thing there is_. Nothing in her experience suggested that he had lied.

There would be many a knight at this wedding.

She shook her head to dispel her worries. Yes, there would be many knights at the wedding, but most of them would be under her brother's command. They would meet up with Lord Bolton's forces coming up from Harrenhall and be about seven thousand strong by then. Even if Lord Frey should try for mischief, he'd be outnumbered ten to one.

Somewhat reassured again, her thoughts turned back to the Hound. She tried to imagine how he was faring now, especially in this weather. Would he be slogging through mud and rain, wet and exhausted, the once shiny black coat of his horse brown with dirt? Or had he found a place to hide, warm and safe, content with a life of loneliness? Or had someone given him shelter and a home, maybe even a female someone? What with the way he looked now, he surely would find more than one women recently widowed who would not object to having an able-bodied man with two strong arms in her house.

Musings of that nature tended to leave her unaccountably displeased. Surely she should be happy for him should he find a place to live where he'd be cherished and welcomed? Surely it cast an unfavourable light on her character that she found the thought far more to her liking that he would be somewhere miserable and alone, regretting that he hadn't come with her?

Her attention was captured when she noticed a ray of sunshine from the window, so out of place with the rain still loudly clattering against the glass panes, only to realize that it wasn't sunshine, but a puff of golden dust.

The same sort of golden dust she remembered from when she had been whisked away from King's Landing.

"You came back!" she exclaimed when she finally recognized the apparition.

The puff of dust materialized into a little flying golden girl that settled onto the windowsill in front of her.

"Technically speaking, I was never really anywhere else," she said haughtily, which made Sansa smile. From what she had gotten from Clegane, fairies were not at all easy to converse with.

"My greetings," Sansa said, giving a short curtsey. "To what do I owe the honour?"

"I am to grant you three wishes," the fairy said matter-of-factly, as if this was an ordinary occurrence.

Quite suddenly, Sansa sympathized with the Hound and his apparent inability to believe in what he'd seen with his own eyes. As his mind probably had as well, her own simply refused to believe that his was real. It could not be.

"Three wishes?" she echoed, sounding disturbingly dim-witted, even to her own ears.

The fairy nodded.

"There are, however, some rules."

"I know," Sansa said, glad she had at least some knowledge about this, even if it was just second-hand.

"The rules are I cannot change the past, I cannot wish for someone to die and I cannot wish for more wishes."

"Correct," the fairy said, beaming at her. "Although I think wishing for someone to fall in love with you should be forbidden as well. Sandor Clegane made a very compelling argument for that."

Hearing his name mentioned in the tinkling, bell-like voice of the little creature gave Sansa's heart a painful jolt. Or maybe it was the fact that he had spoken to the fairy about falling in love.

Swallowing the obstruction that had formed in her throat, she resolved to ask what was on her mind.

"Would he have wished for someone to fall in love with him?"

Her nails bit into the skin of her hand as she wrung her hands together, not daring to pray for a negative answer, steeling herself for whatever answer she would get.

On the fairy's golden face, a secretive, wide smile appeared.

"I am sure that line of questioning falls under the rules of fairy-client privilege." Then she hopped up, fluttered around and finally settled on Sansa's shoulder. "Besides, I believe you have more important things to worry about at this moment."

The admonition had her face turning red with shame. Of course.

Here she stood, waiting to go into war at her brother's side and all she could think about was whether or not Sandor Clegane was secretly in love with some woman.

"Can you keep them safe?" she asked quietly. "My family, all those who are…," her breath hitched as she remembered her dead brothers, her father. Her brave little sister, probably lost as well. "… all of those still living. Can you keep them safe to live out their life as they should?"

"Granted," the fairy said softly. "Anything else?"

Sansa thought of the road ahead, of the war that was to fight, of reclaiming Winterfell. Surely there would be enough need for miracles on this journey.

And she thought of him, of the Hound. Of the one who had so selflessly given her his last wish and it occurred to her that now she had the means to ease the burden of guilt she felt. She would keep her last wish for him, return what she owed him.

The resolve to do so was already enough to make her feel lighter, happier than she had been ever since she arrived at Riverrun.

"Not yet," she said, turning her head.

On her shoulder, the fairy dissolved into a puff of dust and Sansa watched, still smiling, as the golden motes slowly became invisible.

 _Sandor Clegane_ , she thought happily. _You gave me comfort when no one else did, gave me a kiss and your cloak and your last wish. And finally I can reward you for your kindness._

 _..._

 _tbc_


	8. A Journey

**_Chapter 8: A Journey_**

Robb bid farewell to his young queen twice.

Once in the godswood in front of the heart tree in the sights of gods and men. The second time beneath the portcullis where Jeyne sent him forth with a long embrace and a longer kiss.

Sansa knew she should avert her eyes, give them privacy, but her gaze was glued to their mouths, how they devoured each other in a kiss that seemed so very different from the fleeting touching of lips she had experienced with the Hound. Was this what a kiss was supposed to be like? Had she made a fool of herself when she kissed the Hound in such a childlike, inexperienced way?

Then again, he had not looked displeased, so maybe she'd done something right after all. Maybe this sort of kissing Jeyne and Robb did was just for married couples and on further study, even though the both of them seemed to be enjoying themselves, the whole process looked really rather uncouth and gross.

Surely her mother thought so as well, because while the men around them softly whistled or smiled knowingly, her mother looked pinched and displeased as if she had eaten a piece of lemon.

An hour beyond Tumblestone, Jeyne came galloping up on a well-lathered horse to plead with Robb to take her along.

Robb was clearly touched by that, Sansa saw, but abashed as well. The day was still damp and grey, the rain had turned to drizzle and the last thing he probably wanted was to have a discussion with his wife in front of half of his army about how she was supposed to obey his orders.

In the end he declared it too much of a bother to send her back with an escort and decided against a third farewell.

…

Over the course of their journey, the rain turned heavier again.

They rode mostly in silence under leaden skies. The rain turned the roads to mud and the fields to quagmires, stripped the trees of their leaves, swelled the rivers and turned even little streams into frothing torrents, making most of them impassable for fear of losing horses or wains.

There was much and more that could hold up an entire army of almost four thousand men, hundreds of horses and oxen-drawn carts.

Sansa was tempted to wish for a more pleasant journey, but knowing it would be frivolous to wish for comfort when there were so much more important things still ahead of them always had her smother the thought before it could fully form.

Their route took them through the Whispering Woods, an experience that Sansa was sure would give her nightmares for many nights to come. She knew it was the place of her brother's first and most decisive victory. The place where they had taken Jaime Lannister prisoner, the man her mother had sent away to be exchanged for her and Arya against Robb's will.

But all she could see were the signs of carnage: the rotting bones of a horse, the splintered lances, the overturned helms filling with rain. Stone cairns had been raised over the bodies of the fallen, but scavengers had been at some of them. There were glimpses of bright cloth and shining metal and once she spied a face peering out at her, the shape of the skull beginning to emerge from beneath the melting brown flesh.

 _So much death_ , she thought, with both revulsion and sadness. _So much suffering and horror._ Such a waste of men and animals and steel. And for which purpose? For revenge? For justice?

Was it just to have thousands die for the death of one man? Would her father have wanted this on his behalf? Who had invested kings and lords with the right to lead men to their deaths for whatever purpose they seemed deserving?

Should it not be in the hands of the gods, old and new alike, to determine the fate of men? And if the lords did the will of the gods, as they were so sure they did, how could it be that both sides claimed it was so?

 _All men are killers._

Had he been right? Even more so than she had understood at the time? Was her life to be lived in the intermissions between wars, in the short periods were men licked their wounds and armies replenished their resources only to be at one another's throats again as soon as possible?

Was there truly no other way?

...

Their journey was prolonged even more when they discovered that they had to go around the Blue Fork, further delaying their journey and probably angering Lord Walder even more with their tardiness.

They made camp near Oldstones, where Lord Mallister joined their party. Whatever news he had brought, whatever was discussed at her brother's tent, didn't seem to be happy tidings. Her mother looked more unhappy and dissatisfied with every passing hour, snapped at everyone who dared speaking to her and her brother almost never spoke to anyone outside of the meetings he held with his bannermen.

The only one who was carefree and happy was dear Jeyne. With every passing day, she seemed to bloom and warm up, had smiled almost constantly and had started to have a glow to her that shone even over the grey and damp of the weather around them as if it couldn't faze her.

"She's breeding," her mother one day said to Sansa when they both sat down at a makeshift trestle table for their midday meal. "Took them long enough and not for want of trying," she added and Sansa blushed at her mother's bluntness. Surely she shouldn't discuss such things in front of her?

She must have made a sound of distress, because her mother suddenly looked at her and then lowered her eyes again.

"I am sorry, Sansa," she said, reaching out a hand to her. "I shouldn't have said that. I know you like her well enough, but I am so very worried for your brother. I have not yet consoled myself to him marrying her and breaking his vow, I still think it unwise to bring her with him." Then she sighed and rubbed her free hand over her brow. "Just this morning, I angered my brother by speaking what I deem the truth and now he doesn't speak to me anymore and Robb means to send me away after the wedding, to stay with Lord Mallister at Seagard when all I want is to stay at his side."

It was the longest and most honest confession her mother had so far made in her presence and Sansa felt not all at easy to find her mother, whom she always had thought to be so in control of every one of her feelings, so at the mercy of her own turbulent emotions.

Was this something new, or something she only had never noticed before, being too young to really see?

"I'll be with you at Seagard," Sansa said and there was a look in her mother's eyes that said _yes, but_ and that look hurt her more than she could have believed possible.

Suddenly not hungry anymore, she shoved her half eaten meal away and stood.

"If you excuse me, mother, I promised Jeyne to work on the tapestry with her."

She turned to go and after a few steps pretended not to hear her mother calling her name.

…

They heard the Green Fork before they saw it, an endless insistent murmur, like the low growl of a great beast.

Robb summoned his wife and family to his side and donned his crown to greet Lord Walder or whomever the man would think to send out into the rain in his stead.

Four Freys rode out from the gatehouse and while her mother, uncle and brother discussed the identity of those men, Sansa's attention was captured by Grey Wind who stood stiff, his wet fur in bristles along his neck, golden eyes watchfully peering from narrowed eyes. Something was clearly making him weary, but what drew Sansa's attention more than all that was the softly red-golden sheen on his fur.

Other than her beloved Lady or even Bran's Summer, Grey Wind's fur never had any sort of lightness to it. It was like smoky grey mist, enabling him to blend in with fog and rain and shadows and one would only notice him when it was too late.

But now he almost sparkled with golden dust and for the moment not caring what people would think of it, she dismounted and stepped over to the great direwolf whose head almost reached her shoulders. She lifted her hands to bury them into the soft fur at his neck and felt more than heard the beginning of a growl, a low rumble not unlike the one of the river.

She wound her arms around the wolf's neck.

"I do not trust them either," she whispered into his ears and as if he truly understood her words, his ears turned to where her mouth was, although his eyes never left the approaching party. "If you'll help me, we'll keep him safe, you and I, but you have to heed me."

The wolf's whole body started to tremble like a bowstring drawn too tight and it seemed as if he meant to spring forward, toward the men who were by now no more than half a dozen yards away.

"Stay," she whispered and to her surprise, he did. She would have had not a sliver of a chance to hold him should the wolf decide otherwise.

His big head turned to her and golden eyes locked with hers. For a moment, she was taken aback at the intelligence, the sheer keenness in those eyes. Something deep inside her soul was awakened and tugged at as she kept looking at the wolf, giving her a feeling of stinging and prickling like blood flowing back into an unused limb.

Suddenly, she could _feel_ the wolf's agitation, could smell the stench of lies, anger and fear on the men who traded words with her brother.

Something was wrong, something was much worse than all of them had anticipated.

"Grandfather will be pleased to get to see the woman of whom I have told him so much," the man whom Sansa knew to be Black Walder said, sounding unfriendly and on edge.

Then their gazes turned to where she was still standing next to Grey Wind, her arms around the wolf.

"And who might this beauty be?"

"My sister, Princess Sansa Stark," Robb answered stiffly, not before giving her an annoyed glance at her behaviour.

Black Walder's angry scowl deepened.

"You well concealed the happy tidings that your sister was returned to you, Your Grace," he said. "My grandfather will be displeased to have been kept in the dark about this."

The three men in Black Walder's company eyed her appreciatively and Sansa nearly gagged at the cloying smell they gave off; all covetous greed and ill-concealed lust.

In their eyes, she could see the speculation if they would still get Tywin Lannisters' gold if they returned her unharmed but not untouched.

At some point, one of them cleared his throat and turned to Robb again and they were soon discussing where they would be staying during the wedding. Her sense of foreboding grew stronger as the Freys suggested a plan that would split Robb and his lords bannermen from the rest of his men.

"If you would follow me, my lord father awaits," was finally said and Sansa gave Grey Wind's neck a last squeeze before mounting her horse again.

Her mother fell into step with uncle Edmure, whispering to him in strained tones, so Sansa used the chance to speak to Robb.

"They mean mischief, all of them," she told him urgently.

"I know they don't mean well," Robb replied, clearly irritated. "But I have an army to protect me and mother insists that as long as we take bread and salt as soon as we see the old man, we will be safe."

"We won't be," Sansa said, suddenly even surer of the fact than she had been before. "I know it. Grey Wind knows it."

Robb looked down at his wolf who walked across the drawbridge as if it was made of hot coals. But as if an invisible leash was binding her to him, she drew him up short when she felt he wanted to balk and growl and make a fuss.

"What do you want me to do?" Robb asked.

She was at a loss for a moment, but then she looked down at the golden sheen on Grey Wind's fur and she knew.

"Meet me after the audience with Lord Frey is at an end," she said. "I'll claim to want to tend to your wolf."

Robb nodded tersely.

"You do not want to get dry and rest a bit before the evening?" he asked. "Jeyne said she can barely stay in the saddle anymore."

A smile tugged at her lips as she thought of exactly why Jeyne was so exhausted. The young queen had not yet told Robb what all of them suspected, not sure enough of the news yet, but her tiredness surely was another sign, or so her mother claimed.

Others, like gossiping servants not noticing Sansa's presence, said that Jeyne's tiredness rather came from the demands her brother made of her at night, the nature of which seemed to be common knowledge but were a mystery to her.

"I am not all that tired," she answered Robb's question, although the thought of a dry room and a fire was beyond tempting, but could not stand against the very real fear she felt about how this day was to turn out.

"Please stay calm whatever it takes," she told Robb when they dismounted. "You must not let yourself be provoked."

Her cautious words earned her the sight of her kingly brother rolling his eyes in a decidedly unkingly fashion.

"I _know_ ," he said. "I already had the pleasure of hearing this from mother. I shall be as meek as a lamb and as sweet as a septon. I shall eat whatever he brings before me, even if it's rotten flesh crawling with maggots."

The audience with the lord of the castle went as well or as badly as could be expected, Lord Walder wasting no chance to push the boundaries of propriety to see Robb humiliate himself.

After he had put Robb through apologizing to his many daughters, after they had been given bread and cheese and butter instead of the fare Robb had expected, after her uncle Edmure's prospective bride had been revealed to be so lovely it appeared her uncle couldn't help but fall in love with her on the spot, Lord Frey finally seemed to notice the two other women on Robb's side.

"Now to those two," he drawled, pointing his gouty fingers rudely to Jeyne and her. "Whom are you bringing before me now, your grace? Two saleswomen, one could say, if one were polite. One sold herself for a crown, the other for her freedom."

Robb jerked next to her and Sansa almost reached out to lay a calming hand on her brother's arm.

 _Be still, be calm_ , she urged him silently. _Remember what we talked about._

"I do not understand your meaning, Lord Walder," Robb replied, his voice thin and trembling with anger. "I brought to you my lady wife, your queen, and my lady sister over whose return we're rejoicing."

Lord Walder smacked his lips over his toothless gums in a disgusting fashion and let his weasel eyes roam once more over both of them. Nothing but greed was in the way he looked them over, Tywin Lannister's promise of gold clearly at the fore of his thoughts. Jeyne received a similar look and Sansa's stomach clenched at the notion that the Lannisters might have put a price on her head as well, only that with her they wouldn't care if she was dead or alive, as long as she would not bear Robb any sons.

Under Sansa's hand, Grey Wind's fur bristled and he growled so low in his throat, the sound vibrated all through her.

 _Quiet, Grey Wind_ , she commanded in her thoughts and – still surprising to her – the wolf calmed.

"She seems to have a way with canines, your sister has," Lord Walder said after looking at where she had her hand buried in the wolf's fur. "She's a witch, they say. One hears she bewitched the Lannister's Hound, gave him a fair face and her body besides and in thanks he freed her from captivity."

Sansa's jaw went slack and she found herself looking at Lord Walder with wide-eyed astonishment.

That was what people were saying? That she had used witchcraft? That Sandor Clegane's changed appearance was her doing, the price paid for her freedom in addition to giving him herself as well?

For the life of her, she couldn't even come up with an answer for this charge.

Robb, however, didn't miss a beat.

"If my sister was truly as powerful a sorceress, wouldn't she have freed herself the moment my father was killed? Or more importantly, would she not have saved my lord father in the first place?"

Sansa slowly turned her head to look with pained horror at her brother. His words didn't sound like something he had just made up in answer to Lord Walder's ridiculous claim. It had been on his mind long before now and she felt betrayed that he had never shared any of this with her.

"T'is known that a witch only comes into her power once she starts bleeding. She disappeared mere days after that happened, one hears."

Behind her back, she heard her mother gasp for air and as her face burned with embarrassment at having her private matters so publicly discussed, she felt her brother's eyes on her as well.

What with one thing and another, she had not yet gotten around to telling her mother that she had flowered already, it seemed so unimportant a detail in comparison to all the other momentous things that had happened during the last couple of weeks. She had not even consciously thought about it herself, probably only would have thought of it if she had bled again.

But now her own family was looking at her as if she had kept a war-changing secret.

"If she had the power to change a man's face, why would she have needed the Hound's help at all?"

It was Jeyne, wonderful, sweet Jeyne who had come to her rescue and to Sansa's great relief, Lord Walder had no immediate answer to Jeyne's sensible question.

He flapped his hand dismissively.

"You're right, it's probably all idle gossip anyway. You are all welcome here beneath my roof and at my table," he said cheerily and then gestured to some of his sons and grandsons. "You're weary and wet as well, dripping on my floor. There's fires waiting for you and hot mulled wine and baths should you want them. Lothar, show our guests to their quarters."

Sansa found herself weaken at the prospect of mulled wine, fire and warm water, but in her mind's eye, she saw the face from the Whispering Woods again, half-rotten and dead, buried in cold wet earth far from home. If she didn't want to end up just like this, comfort had to wait.

"I'll need to see my men across the river," Robb said, "and Lady Sansa wishes to walk Grey Wind for a while."

"Your men shan't get lost," Lord Walder complained. "They've crossed before, haven't they? And your wolf has had enough traipsing around already, he looks just as wet and tired as the rest of you. Surely a dry kennel and a leg of mutton will do him good, don't you think? I shall summon my master of hounds."

Sansa drew herself upright.

"He's a direwolf not a dog and he's weary around people and places he doesn't know," she said decisively. "If he gets acquainted with the place, he shall be docile as a lamb at the feast."

"I'll not have him at the my sweet Roslin's wedding," Lord Walder said with an ugly downturn of his lips. "Has a taste for human flesh, this one, one hears. Rips out throats and the like. There will be women and little ones at the feast and I won't have them hurt."

"Grey Wind is no danger to them," Robb protested, "not as long as I am there. You've seen how well behaved he was the entire time."

Lord Walder sucked his lips in and pushed them out again, visibly searching for a way to get rid of Grey Wind. Sansa had by now some idea of what he was trying to cook up and Grey Wind would put some of his plans at risk.

She frantically searched for a solution, something that would leave Lord Walder no choice.

"Oh Robb," she said, turning to her brother while trying to force artificial tears to her eyes. "It is quite alright; I can fully understand Lord Walder's misgivings. Only you know how dreadfully frightened I am when Grey Wind is not by my side, so I'll stay with him in my quarters, it will be best for all."

An identical expression of frowning puzzlement appeared on both her brother's and Lord Walder's faces, but Robb quickly caught on.

"I am afraid my sister is quite right," he said with an apologetic mien so patently artificial, it almost made Sansa laugh. "She became very attached to the wolf after she came back and only feels safe when he's with her. Since she has only recently returned to us, I have indulged her in this. It might be best if she stayed away from the feast with him."

"Eh!" Lord Walder exclaimed, flapping his hand in the dismissive gesture he used when his will was thwarted. "Bring the beast then and your sister with it, I'll not have it said I do not accommodate my king's family as well as is possible, even if it means to turn my sweet innocents to wolf-fodder."

...

tbc


	9. A Wedding

**_Chapter 9: A Wedding_**

When Robb met up with her some time later, Sansa was more agitated than before and quick to show her brother why.

"See these wall hangings," she told him, pointing while looking around herself to see if they were alone. "Look behind them."

Quickly and stealthily, Robb took a look as being bid.

"Lances and swords hidden," he said, his face darkening.

Sansa nodded. "Yes, and this isn't the only place. There are several crossbows up on the minstrels' gallery, swords and lances everywhere behind tapestries and hidden in chests. Outside, behind the feasting tents, there are more weapons stashed away."

"How did you find all this?"

Sansa hesitated. Could she tell him that she had seen the same red-golden glow as surrounded Grey Wind on every chest she had opened, every tapestry she'd looked behind? That the crossbows on the minstrels' gallery had been like glowing beacons, visible even from below?

"I looked," she finally said, which was as close to not being a lie as she could manage.

Robb's shoulders slumped and he shook his head wearily.

"I am cold and I am tired," he said. "I have been humiliated today more than I ever have in my entire life and now I have a battle on my hands of which I do not know the rules."

Sansa took his hand and led him outside, where they stood in the inner courtyard, facing each other while getting drenched in the heavily falling rain. The noisy downpour provided a privacy to their conversation they would otherwise have had a hard time finding anywhere else.

"Lord Walder will want to have the marriage sealed, confirmed and binding, so anything he plans will only start after the bedding. He hopes that until then, your men will already be deep in their cups, putting up no resistance."

Wiping the rain out of his eyes, Robb nodded.

"Makes sense, but he will still be heavily outnumbered. Lord Bolton just arrived with even more troops, even if it is less than I expected. I am on my way to him right now."

Under her hand, Grey Wind became alert and growled, his fur shimmering again.

Sansa almost asked Robb if Grey Wind looked different to him, but she was rather sure it would be a futile question. If Robb would see even only a fraction of that glow that was so evident to Sansa, surely he would have remarked on it already.

"I'd like to come, too," she said instead.

…

Her brother's lords bannermen were all assembled in one room, wet and unusually somber and subdued, even Lord Umber.

In front of the fire, wettest of all, Lord Bolton stood warming his hands.

At hearing them enter, he turned and locked his eyes to her. For a split moment, just long enough to school his face back to polite blandness, she saw a sliver of fear.

"So it's true," he murmured, but then bowed to her. "The lost daughter has been magically returned to the bosom of her family."

"Magic had nothing to do with it," Lord Umber said. "I was there when she arrived at Riverrun, let me tell you, t'was nothing magical about it at all. If she was a witch like everyone and their uncle around here keeps saying, surely she wouldn't have arrived in rags."

Lord Bolton's eyes kept drilling into hers as if he meant to divine her secrets, but curiously enough, all he truly did was telling her all of his.

Secrets so horrible, Sansa could only stay upright by holding on to Grey Wind.

"Robb," she said, not even having to pretend being tired, "I feel a craving for the comforts Lord Walder so generously offered, might I have a minute of your time before I go?"

"A moment, my lords," Robb said to his men and they stepped outside again.

Once there, she wound her arms around her brother's neck and brought her lips to his ears.

"Lord Bolton is not on your side, Robb. He's left Lord Manderly to the Lannisters on purpose and only brought his own men and the Karstark forces. He's taken Winterfell back from Theon, but he means to keep it for himself."

"How do you know?" Robb whispered back. "How can you expect me to act on this information which might be all in your head?"

His question was justified and not unexpected, but she had nonetheless no idea how to answer it.

She thought of the wish she had made to the fairy, of how Robb and her mother would probably be safe regardless of what Robb decided. But would she be safe as well? Would Jeyne and her unborn child? For a moment, she chided herself for having been so vague about who she wanted to include in her wish when she said _family_. But it was too late now and all she was left with was the question how to convince Robb he had to trust her.

It occurred to her then, that this wasn't about the trust he placed in her, it was in equal measure about the trust she had in him. In his promise to keep her safe.

"It's up to you to decide whether or not you think this believable," she said and let go of him, "I trust you'll do the right thing."

Then she turned to go, Grey Wind trailing dutifully in her wake.

…

In the end, Robb once again proved why he had won every battle so far.

Not only had he managed to set up a plan with the help of his bannermen while deftly excluding Lord Bolton under some flimsy pretext; between them, they had managed to inform their men of what they were up against while keeping up the pretence of drinking and feasting and not having a care in the entire world.

In retrospect, Sansa thought, they had done a much better job of it than the assembled Freys who seemed more nervous and on edge than any man loyal to Robb.

She had had a quick respite from her nervous anticipation of things to come while witnessing the bedding ceremony, something she had never seen before on account of still being too young.

It seemed a rather bawdy and undignified spectacle to her and she shuddered at the thought of being at the centre of this particular custom.

Since she was part of the throng surrounding her uncle Edmure, she got to see rather more of him than she had ever expected, even though she studiously avoided looking down past his waistline.

Her uncle was an attractive man by all standards, at least that was what everyone said, but Sansa found his pale upper body not all that interesting to look at. He appeared much stronger and broader in armour or clothes and she wondered if any man would prove to be such a disappointment when disrobed. Did men feel the same way when looking at a naked woman?

Then again, she'd seen a glimpse of how uncle Edmure had raked his eyes over Roslin's exposed body before they were shoved into their bridal chamber and there seemed to be no disappointment at all.

For a moment, her thoughts strayed to Sandor Clegane as she remembered how he had felt when he held her, remembered iron hard-muscles under his tunic, strong thighs bunching beneath her as she lay curled against a chest that felt like a warm, breathing but solid wall. Would all of that strength look any less imposing to the eye than it had felt to the touch?

On the floor beneath her, shouts and screams could be heard and the fear that gripped her at the sound paralyzed her for a moment.

She had not been privy to Robb's plans, but he had assured her he was confident all would work out well, that he'd made sure that the element of surprise was on their side, not on Lord Walder's or Lord Bolton's.

When she came back down, the first thing she noticed was Grey Wind, looming over a terrified Lord Walder who still sat on his black chair. The wolf had his big paws on the armrests and golden eyes unblinkingly trained on Lord Walder, his fangs not two inches from the old man's face.

"What tune were your so-called musicians supposed to play next, Lord Walder?" Robb asked lightly. "The _Rains of Castamere_ mayhap? Dreadfully boring song if you ask me."

"Is this how a king rewards hospitality and support, your Grace?" Lord Walder asked with a shrillness to his voice that spoke of sheer terror.

"I found the weapons and the crossbows, Lord Walder," Robb said in answer. "I took some of your sons and grandsons and asked them a few questions… with some insistence, I admit."

Sansa shuddered at the thought of what that meant.

"You meant to murder my son!" Sansa's mother cried from one corner of the room where she held a dagger to man's throat who wore the Frey's sigil on his tunic. "You meant to betray a sacred custom."

A change came over Lord Walder's face as he realized that his game was up, that there was no use in pretending anymore.

"One wrong turn is worth another, don't you think?" the old man spat but quieted instantly when Grey Wind growled and bared his teeth.

"I apologized," Robb said.

"I was promised a queen and I got an apology instead," Lord Walder said with a rattling, old-men's laugh. "How'd you feel in my shoes?"

"One wrong is never worth another," Sansa spoke up, stepping up to where Jeyne sat trembling and crying on a chair, overwhelmed by events that must have come as a shock to her. She gently put her hand on the young queen's shoulder. "Men might think that way, but all it ever gets us is more bloodshed."

Lord Walder snorted.

"Letting your little sister do your talking now, your Grace?"

"My _little sister_ ," Robb said, his lips pulling into a grin, "is the one who discovered your devious scheme."

A loud laugh came from behind her and she turned to where Lord Umber stood next to Lord Bolton who was trussed up like a harvest feast turkey, blood freely seeping into the man's pale pink cloak.

"So they're right in King's Landing," Bolton sneered. "She is a witch. No honest man could have seen this coming." He straightened as much as he could, visibly suppressing a groan as he did. "The North will henceforth be ruled by wargs, wolves and witches," he continued, exposing his white teeth which looked gruesome in his blood smeared face. His pale eyes were shooting blank hatred at her, undisguised now. "You'll bring ruin to the land, for no one will help you during the coming winter, no one will sell you corn or cloth or salt. The south will continue to rebel against your claim and all you have is a wolf and a little witch's magic. You might not have lost your crown today, Robb Stark, but you _will_ lose it."

Robb turned very slowly and – refusing to even look at Bolton – gave a nod to Greatjon Umber.

"Get the traitor outside," he said in a low growl. "And if anyone has the stomach for it, turn him into his sigil."

Sansa heavily plopped down on the chair next to Jeyne, absurdly grateful that she had been too nervous to eat anything before, because surely it would all have come up again at was Robb's words meant.

If she wasn't afraid of incurring his wrath, she would ask Robb to withdraw his orders, to give a merciful death to his enemies to show that he was the better man, a just king.

"On second thought," Robb said when Lord Umber was almost through the door. "Don't. Just… make him stop breathing."

A heavy silence fell when Lord Bolton's curses and cries finally couldn't be heard anymore.

"What will you do with me?" Lord Frey asked.

"I do not know yet," Robb gave back. "It will cost me more time than I have to handle this mess, but handle it I will. There will be a new Lord of the Crossing as of this day and he will not be a Frey. I have not decided yet, but…"

Robb's sentence was cut short when a high-pitched shriek sounded through the hallways, followed by the clatter of steel boots and loud curses.

"Come back, I said!"

Another shriek could be heard and then something small and dirty and rag-clad barrelled through the door and launched itself at Sansa's mother.

"Mother!"

"Arya!"

Sansa shot upright from her chair and took a hasty step toward where the dirty boy clung to her mother, both of them weeping. She couldn't help but marvel at her mother's ability to divine that it was truly her lost sister under the filthy mop of shorn hair, under all that grime and mud.

Quite suddenly, Sansa could sympathize with how her brother must have felt when she had reappeared in much a similar fashion and could barely bite back the deluge of questions she had on her tongue.

But Arya recovered much more quickly than Sansa had.

"Oh Sansa, you're here, too!" she exclaimed and gave her a firm hug that left mud all over the front of Sansa's dress. "We heard you disappeared from King's Landing by magic, but Ryder said it was all hogwash and old women's tales."

"We?" Robb inquired carefully, before he, too, was treated to a heartfelt if decidedly dirty hug.

"The man who brought me here," Arya said, words almost falling over each other so rapidly did they come out of her mouth. "Big chap, bit rough in his manner, but a good sort. Ryder Hills, he called himself. Bastard from Lannister lands. I thought he had the look of a Clegane about him, poor guy. Teased him about it until he pretended to be cross with me, but he never really was."

"Ah, Sansa!" Arya exclaimed happily, before Sansa had properly digested what had been said. Arya came back over her in a way that was more a bounce than a walk and shoved something wet and muddy into her hand. "He seemed to like you from what I told him about you, gave me this to give to you when I see you again."

Sansa's hands were slightly shaking as she unwrapped the gift from the man who had saved her sister.

Her eyes widened when a comb fell into her hand. Whittled from whalebone, enamelled with mother-of-pearl. Delicate and feminine and hers. The one that should be still in King's Landing with everything else she'd left behind.

"Sandor," she breathed as her knees threatened to give way beneath her just before a piercing pain stabbed through her lower belly.

 _Not now_ , she begged, knowing what the pain meant. _Not yet._

Then she turned towards the door.

"Sandor!" she cried. He had to be here still. He would not have sent a little girl into this castle alone, would he?

"SANDOR!"

It felt not wrong, to say his given name, to have it as a desperate shout on her lips as she tore through the hallways of the Freys' tower, flew down the staircases and ran out into the yard. They had not been this familiar back in King's Landing, but over the weeks after her arrival at Riverrun, she felt as if she had gotten to know him despite his absence, so much had he become part of her thoughts.

"SANDOR!"

She spun around in a circle on the yard, praying for a sign, a clue of where he might be, a shimmer of golden dust, maybe, to show her the way. But there was only darkness and rain, the noise of the fight that still raged on the other side of the river, although it appeared to be only Robb's men rounding up a few stragglers who tried to flee.

Blinding pain made her double over for a second, the pulling and cramping much worse than she remembered from last time.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, she crossed the yard and ran toward the drawbridge, her voice growing hoarse from shouting. Her stockinged feet splashed through mud and ice-cold puddles, her shoes probably lying lost somewhere on the stairs of the tower.

Before she could clear the drawbridge, steel-clad fists grabbed her by her arms, hindering her progress.

"SANDOR!" she screamed again and struggled against her captor.

"Please, my lady," the man holding her almost begged. "You cannot run outside just now, it's too dangerous. Whomever you are looking for will have to be found tomorrow."

The next time she attempted to call his name, it came out a broken sob and she sagged against the man behind her, suddenly spent and powerless, shivering in the wet cold and the only things she could feel were the wrenching pain in her lower belly and the warmth of blood running down her thighs.

"He'll be gone by then," she whispered.

"Then he doesn't want to be found," the soldier said and picked her up, carrying her back across the drawbridge.

...

tbc


	10. Homeward Bound

**_Chapter 10: Homeward Bound_**

It took more than a week for Robb to deal with the aftermath of what people were starting to call the "Red Wedding" for all the blood that had been spilled on a day that should have been full of joy.

Sansa spent most of her time in her chambers, wrapped in pain from her moonblood and in general misery besides, while around her everyone seemed happy and ecstatic, especially her mother.

 _She's happier about Arya being back than about me_ , the thought sulkily, knowing the thought to be beneath her, but wallowing in the sentiment of being the unloved one nonetheless.

She pretended boredom when Robb came to visit to tell her about how things were until he became angry and left, from then on only sending Grey Wind to her now and again, who was about the only living being whose presence didn't rub her the wrong way.

Her mother testily inquired a few times why she was behaving like this when she should be glad how things had worked out, but Sansa wouldn't have been able to explain it even to herself. She was uncomfortable in her own skin, as if it was a dress someone had treated with itching powder. She felt like screaming and weeping and laughing manically, preferable all at the same time. She didn't feel like herself at all, but powerless to help it. She was mad at everyone she could think of and most of all at Sandor Clegane, for having abandoned her not once, but twice now.

Red-hot anger turned to bottomless sadness and back again and often enough it was only Grey Wind's huge body, lying furry and warm next to her, a soft whine in his throat, that helped her get enough of a grip on herself to get up and face everyone at mealtimes.

Arya had been notably absent from Sansa's chambers for all this time, but one day the door opened to the sound of a quiet _whoof!_ from Grey Wind as Arya stealthily snuck through the door.

"It wasn't him, Sansa," she said without preamble. "I do not know why that means so much to you, but it wasn't the Hound. I would've known."

"No you wouldn't," she said in a voice that was to communicate she couldn't even be bothered to become angry. "Didn't you hear that I changed his face?"

Arya snorted and plopped down on the bed where Sansa lay curled against the wolf, making all of them bounce.

"Yes, I also heard you turned into a bird and flew right out of Maegor's Holdfast and just an hour ago someone said that the Old Gods gave you the greensight so you knew what old Walder had planned for the wedding."

Arya still bounced up and down on the bed. There was never ceasing movement about her these days, a pervasive nervousness she could not shed even in her sleep. Her mother said she tossed and turned so much during the night, her bedclothes were in knots every morning.

If all this was due to something she had experienced between her disappearance from King's Landing and now, no one could say. She talked about all this only in funny anecdotes, disjointed pieces of a puzzle no one had managed to put together, yet.

Robb had quipped one day that he now had two sisters who were keeping secrets.

"Ryder said it was all stupid rumours and fairy tales, that no one could change a face like the Hound's."

"Of course he'd say that," Sansa mumbled into her pillow, the feeling of betrayal flaring up again.

"Sandor Clegane was a vicious beast, he killed Mycah and the Gods know who else. Ryder Hills was funny and kind, he took good care of me during our journey and it wasn't as if it all went easy. We had a few very troubling encounters, I can tell you."

A darkness pervaded her sister's voice at her last words and if Sansa had not felt so lethargic, she might have asked her about it.

"Whatever," she said instead. "Must have been a really great guy to sneak away like a thief after he'd brought you here. Robb surely would have rewarded him handsomely."

The bouncing stopped for a moment and Sansa felt smug for having hit the mark.

Then the bouncing resumed again.

"He talked about the reward for a while, that's true. But later he mentioned something about having to find his brother because of some unfinished business. Never found out what it was."

Sansa shot upright, startling both her sister and the wolf dozing next to her.

"His brother, of course!"

She had been so wrapped in her own misery, in her feeling of being discarded for some purpose or other, a woman most likely, that she had completely forgotten about Gregor Clegane.

The man who had taken the Ruby Ford and held Wylis Manderly and other highborn Northmen prisoner in Harrenhall.

"The hero's trials," she murmured and Arya stopped her bouncing once again.

"Come again?"

"Do you remember what Old Nan told us about the trials a man chosen by the Old Gods has to go through to prove his worth?"

Arya scrunched up her nose.

"Why'd you suddenly want to know that?"

"Do you remember?" Sansa asked impatiently, having gotten up from the bed to look for her shoes. Maybe her mother would know the answer to her question, or Robb. If Arya proved unhelpful, she had to find them.

"I know one was to endure torment," Arya said slowly. "Then something about evil and innocence."

Sansa had started to pace, but at hearing Arya's words snapped her fingers.

"Right," she said, her agitation growing. "He has to endure great torment, fight evil and save an innocent. Only then would he find his true purpose and his true love."

Arya looked unconvinced.

"More hogwash," she said with a sigh. "Once the poor guy would be true fighting all that evil and saving all those innocents, one would think he already has found his purpose. Besides, I am pretty sure you just invented the true love thing. Ryder would say that life is nothing like Old Nan's stories."

Sansa listened to her only with half an ear, too preoccupied with her own musings which for a change were happy ones.

Sandor Clegane had not been chosen on a fairy's whim, he'd been chosen for who he was. The only thing left to do for him was fighting evil and as far as that was concerned, she was sure he needn't look further than his own brother.

And once he had dealt with him, he would be free to look for his true love. Maybe a lady who herself had been chosen by the Old Gods. It would only be logical, wouldn't it?

Closing her eyes, she stretched her arms to her side and slowly twirled, lost in fanciful daydreams.

…

Under the impression of what had happened at the Twins, Robb had decided to keep all his "hens in one basket" as he called it one day, much to his bannermen's amusement and her mother's tight-lipped dismay at the disrespectful joke.

Still, they were all happy to stay together, now more than ever with Arya returned to them and Jeyne having spilled her sweet secret to Robb to the latter's unmistakable and utter happiness.

They stayed a day's ride behind the army, heavily guarded, while Robb retook Moat Cailin from the Ironborn, a feat that in retrospect had been much easier than he had feared.

The Ironborn, not used to this form of warfare, had been disorganized and panicked as they realized by just how large a host they were besieged. But in the end, Lord Reed's crannogmen brought the battle to a swift end by picking off the invaders one by one with their poisoned darts or a quick cut to an unsuspecting throat. Some of Robb's men later said it had looked as if they had been felled by invisible hands.

Unfortunately, the talk of witches and magic had not ceased after they left the Twins and the effortless victory at Moat Cailin had only poured oil to that particular flame. Therefore, Sansa found herself always regarded with a mixture of awe and fear when she walked through the encampment with Grey Wind at her side.

 _Let them think me a witch_ , she had decided one day.

It had even served her well a couple of times when some of the more highborn men tried to secure her favour, probably with one eye on marrying into the royal family.

They always beat a hasty retreat when she started gesturing with her hands, closing her eyes and humming a tune in her throat.

Arya had watched such an occurrence one day and after almost dying of laughter, had cheerfully started to blackmail her with the threat of telling all this to their mother should Sansa continue to insist on Arya's help with the embroidering of Robb's tapestry. Since Sansa knew that Arya's contribution was not at all likely to improve the work anyway, she submitted. But there was no telling if Arya wouldn't continue to hold her knowledge over her head, so she ceased her attempts at this mummer's show.

Not that it helped with the rumours about her.

…

After the victory at Moat Cailin, they spent a few days as guests of Lord Reed, for everyone to regain their strength for the long march to Winterfell and the fight that awaited them there.

Sansa spent that time mostly with Jeyne to work on the tapestry, or – which seemed more prudent now considering the circumstances – on clothes, blankets and swaddling for the baby.

One day, they were in the midst of a giggling fit about something inappropriate Lord Umber had said a while ago, when the door to Sansa's guest chamber opened and Sansa's mother stepped inside.

"Your Grace," she began, looking at Jeyne, "May I ask to have a private word with my daughter? The King wishes for your company."

Jeyne, quite obviously still uncomfortable to be addressed like this, coloured at little and nodded.

After giving Sansa an apologetic look, she left the tent so quickly she might as well have been running.

Her mother picked up the piece of knitting Jeyne had left in her sewing basking and continued where Jeyne had stopped, working for a while without saying anything, only causing Sansa to get more nervous.

Had she heard about her acting as if she truly was a witch? Or – infinitely worse – would this be the discussion she had dreaded for weeks, about how much she had hurt her reputation by running around hollering a man's name at the top of her lungs?

"When I was your age," her mother began, "we had a master-at-arms at Riverrun who was quite a favourite with all the ladies."

With a sinking feeling, Sansa had an idea where this was going.

"He was tall and strong, incredibly handsome and always had a smile on his lips. Many a maid lost her heart to him… and a few other things besides. Even I – knowing him beneath me – couldn't help being captured by his easy charm, by his looks and his winning smiles. I even petitioned my father to let me marry him because I thought myself so much in love."

A self-indulgent smile coloured her mother's voice at the recollection.

Sansa kept her eyes on her sewing, pretending to concentrate on her work.

So this was what her mother thought. That she had been drawn by a handsome face and a strong body, by charm and an easy smile. She nearly laughed at the idea of Sandor Clegane being charming, let alone winningly smiling at someone.

"This isn't some fancy, mother," she said softly and if she didn't have to be so very careful of what she wished these days, she would have wished for things between her mother and her to be as they had been before King Robert came to Winterfell. When she had adored her mother and her mother had pampered and adored her.

Nowadays, they treated each other as if respectively suspecting the other to be a jar of wildfire, ready to go up in flames at the slightest spark of fire.

"He saved me and he did so more than once," she went on, still trying for softly explaining instead of forcefully making her point. "He never asked for anything in return."

All this she had told her mother before, had retold every instance of Sandor saving her, and while her mother had seemed surprised at some of the stories, it appeared she could still not see Sandor in a positive light.

"Did he not?" her mother asked, sounding just as careful as Sansa did. "I cannot believe he did all of that just out of the goodness of his heart."

Sansa took a deep breath, willing her rising ire to back down. She had acted petulant and childish enough during her stay at the Twins to last her a lifetime, she had vowed to herself never to behave that immaturely again.

"It saddens me, mother," she said instead, "that you do not believe me. I do not know how I deserve your distrust."

"Sansa, no," her mother said, "that's not what I meant to say at all. It's not you I do not trust. It is merely…," she stopped herself from her outburst, visibly trying to calm herself, to look for exactly the right words. "I have some years' worth of experience on you when it comes to men and all I know is that no man…," again her mother stopped herself, then put down the knitting she had not worked on and smoothed her hands over her skirts in a rare gesture of nervousness.

"I think, what I really meant to ask is: what happened between you and Clegane in King's Landing?"

Sansa thought of a kiss and a secure embrace and as always, her insides hurt at the memory as much as at the thought that this kiss had obviously meant so much more to her than it had meant to him.

She contemplated telling her mother, unburdening herself from this secret she carried, satisfy her mother's curiosity and maybe allay whatever fears she had. But her tongue was not cooperating as she opened her mouth, her mind strongly rebelling against the thought of dragging something into the light that had been only between her and him, intimate, private and magical.

"I just need to understand why you call him by his first name," her mother pressed, growing more insistent with Sansa's silence. "Why you insist on sleeping with his cloak. Why he seems to be on your mind at all times. I merely wanted to tell you that infatuation is something that does not last and that, however important it seems to be at the time, will become nothing but a fond and hazy memory when you're older. That you shouldn't cling to it."

If she was at liberty to wish for things, she might have wished that her mother was right. That at some point, she would just stop hurting whenever she thought of him. That she wouldn't need his cloak to fall asleep at night, that their kiss would not be in her thoughts so much, tormenting her. That she wouldn't be tempted to wish for him to be here, when he had made it so unmistakably clear that he did not want to.

"Have you ever known the feeling of being untouchable, mother?" she asked, lifting her eyes and looking directly at her mother. "Have you ever felt so ostracized, so utterly friendless, people only approached you either because they were paid to, like servants, or because they meant to hurt you? Have you ever walked through your days, seeing only contempt in the eyes of those who looked at you? Have you ever felt that you are judged and found guilty for something you cannot help and did not do?"

"No," her mother said, wetness gathering in the corners of her eyes. "No, I haven't."

"Then your experience is not equal to mine in this regard. Please do not presume you could ever hope to understand what I am feeling, nor what happened between me and Sandor Clegane."

A lone tear rolled down her mother's cheek as she nodded wordlessly.

Then she visibly gathered herself, donned an armour and a mask that Sansa herself knew how to wear and stood up.

Sansa knew without a doubt that she had just made matters so much worse with what she'd said, when Catelyn Stark turned without another word and left her sitting where she was.

…

During the days they spent at Greywater Watch, they received a raven that brought tidings from King's Landing.

To Sansa's surprise, Arya and herself were invited to be present when her brother read the news to his assembled family and lords bannermen.

"Uncle Brynden sent a raven from the Twins and uncle Edmure from Riverrun, both of them telling of events from King's Landing," he began. "It appears Joffrey Baratheon has been poisoned at his own wedding and everyone is convinced Tyrion Lannister is responsible. He is currently held in the black cells, awaiting his trial."

Sansa felt curiously numb at the news. Joffrey had felt so far away these days, it was nothing to her anymore whether he lived or died. The only thing she did feel was a sliver of compassion for Tyrion Lannister, who in her estimation might be many things, but not a kinslayer. In the back of her mind, a faint memory of how he had interceded with Joffrey on her behalf came back to her. In a way, it was his intervention that had made it possible for her to vanish without anyone noticing.

"Who is to be king now?" Lord Reed asked.

"His brother Tommen, most likely," Robb said. "With Cersei as Queen Regent."

Lord Umber snorted.

"That woman cannot even make the right decisions when it comes to whom she opens her legs, let alone rule a kingdom."

"Lord Umber!" Sansa's mother said forcefully, "I beg you to remember the presence of young girls in this… tent."

The Greatjon grumbled something into his beard, but did not say anything else, while Sansa was tempted to point out to her Lady mother that she had heard similarly indecent words from the woman in question herself.

In the end, she held her silence. There was no sense in further estranging herself from her mother if she could help it in any way.

"I expect Tywin Lannister to make all the important decisions as Hand as he has always done," Robb continued. "Also, the alliance between the Tyrells and the Lannisters is still thriving, it seems. Since Joffrey died before the bedding took place, their marriage has been declared void and she is now supposed to marry Tommen."

More snorts could be heard around her, but no one commented on those news, probably in fear of incurring her mother's displeasure.

Then Lord Reed got up from his seat while Robb sat down.

"I've asked for the Queen and the princesses to be present for what I have to say," he began in a voice that sounded much stronger than Sansa would have expected from so slight a man. "It has been a secret for far too long and I think it is time it stops being one."

Sansa leaned forward with a feeling that this revelation would be far more interesting than what Robb had told them.

"I kept this secret on behest of Eddard Stark, who kept it because he had given a solemn promise to his sister on her deathbed. And he kept it to preserve the life of an innocent. But I think the time has come when the keeping of this secret might do more harm than its revelation."

"Now get on with it, Howland, will ya?" the Greatjon grumbled good-naturedly.

Howland Reed smiled and then chuckled a bit sadly.

"I'm still afraid Ned will strike me down from out of his grave for this," he said ruefully.

Then he took a deep breath as if needing to give himself courage, then began his tale.

A tale of a desperate fight of a brother to get to his sister whom he thought to be a prisoner to a selfish prince, only to find that she had gone with him willingly, drunk on love and not regretting her decision. How that brother had finally found her dying in a bed of blood, her newborn son squalling in the midwife's arms and how she had made him swear to keep it secret of whose blood the boy had come, because she knew the wrath of the one she had scorned would not stop at slaying a child.

"The boy you think your bastard brother is a bastard still, but he's as much a Targaryen as he is a Stark and he is not Eddard Stark's son."

Pewter cups and goblets clattered to the ground as her mother sprung up from her seat and – not looking where she went and not caring either way – stormed out of Robb's tent.

Arya made to get up and follow her, but was held back by Lord Reed's hand on her arm.

"Leave her," he advised quietly. "I think she has to come to terms with this on her own."

Sansa looked over to Robb, who looked stunned, as if unable to grasp what had been said.

Curiously, Sansa was not surprised at all.

What Howland Reed had told them made way more sense to her than anything she had believed to be the truth before. She had never truly been able to wrap her mind around the concept of her father – her upright, honourable father – betraying the trust of his young wife. Had never understood how he could be so callous as to insist that Jon grew up as one of them, instead of being sent away as bastard's usually were. She knew her mother had asked for that a thousand times at least. Her father had done almost everything her mother had asked of him, but not that.

Back then, she had been indignant on her mother's behalf, had held herself distant from Jon for her mother's sake.

 _How petty that had been_ , she thought, suddenly feeling guilty. Jon had been a motherless child, with no say in how he had come into the world and she had thought less of him for it.

"I will always think of him as my brother," Arya said, a mulish expression on her face.

Sansa's guilt doubled at the thought that Arya, at least, had not been as shallow as she herself had been.

"I guess I can't name him my heir now," Robb said in a voice coming from far off. "I am glad I never had to make that decision with you being back," he continued, looking at Sansa with a lop-sided smile.

She smiled back, equally unsure of what to feel, only filled with a longing to have Jon right here with them, to kiss his cheek and wrap her arms around him and ask him his forgiveness.

...

tbc


	11. Miracle

**_Chapter 11: Miracle_**

A few days after their departure from Greywater Watch, the North welcomed them with heavy snowfall.

All the northmen suddenly turned into little boys at the sight. Even her mother had a smile on her face at seeing grown men frolicking in the snow, chucking snowballs at one another.

It seemed only now they were finally where they belonged: back in the North.

The snow brought two additions to their party as well.

The first was a young man about Robb's age who rather persistently asked to see "Lady Arya" until his brazenness had the desired result and brought him Arya's attention.

It was apparent from the start that those two knew each other and knew each other well, even though the words Arya had for the boy were less than flattering and not even remotely joyful.

Her mother, at seeing the young man, first looked shocked and then ever so slightly disdainful.

"I suppose you're one of Robert Baratheon's many illegal children," she said with a downturn of her mouth.

The young man looked back unperturbed, holding Catelyn Stark's gaze without even blinking.

"Mayhaps the only one still living," he gave back calmly.

"It's clear Arya had rather not want you with us, so…"

"I've never said that, mother!" Arya interjected. "He's halfway decent as a blacksmith, surely we have use for him?"

At that point, Robb had joined the discussion and ended it by deciding that the young man would indeed be needed as a blacksmith once they'd be back at Winterfell.

Arya seemed unaccountably pleased by that, considering her first reaction.

The second surprise came shortly before nightfall, when Grey Wind suddenly started to howl so loudly, even Robb became nervous.

An answering howl came immediately from somewhere in the vicinity and Grey Wind at once dashed out of Robb's tent and into the night.

When he came back, he was not alone.

At his side, almost as huge as her brother, Nymeria trotted into the camp with an ease as if she had only been away for a couple of hours.

This reunion was very different from the one with Gendry, Sansa observed as Arya came running and threw her arms around her wolf, sobbing and laughing with joy and happiness.

Though she did her best to keep them back, tears freely ran down Sansa's cheeks as she thought of all she had lost that would never come back to her, even should she wish it.

She had lost her wolf forever and from the way things looked, she had lost her Hound as well.

…

The general joy that had buoyed the men for a while at the snowfall and Nymeria's return, which everyone thought to be a good omen, only lasted until the next day.

The weather had been wet and grey ever since they had departed the Twins and no one – neither King nor lowborn soldier – owned a stitch of clothing that wasn't wet or at least clammy.

It had been cold before, but with the snow falling heavily, it was freezing. Again Sansa was tempted to use one of her wishes, but what should she have wished for? For the North not being cold?

Their procession took on a ghostly, eerie sort of stillness the farther north they came on the Kingsroad. The clopping of the horses' hooves was muffled by snow, every sound muted to almost perfect silence.

Before, they hadn't talked because the rain had made it necessary to shout and at some point it hadn't been worth the effort, now it seemed sacrilegious to disturb the peace with loud words.

Besides, how was one to speak with chattering teeth?

…

The Stranger found them during the third night and took to dogging their path ever since.

One soldier had gone to sleep that night and not woken up in the morning, his body already frozen stiff on his pallet that apparently had been too far away from the nearest fire.

Robb gave orders to build more fires, for the men to rotate more often on their watches, so no one would freeze in their sleep, but still death kept taking from them.

The soldiers began coughing, some dropped from their horses, weak with fever. Soon there wasn't enough space in the wains to hold all those who were sick and Robb commanded sleighs to be built for the horses to draw through the snow, with the sick lying on them by threes and fours, while those who had been riding before where forced to walk and lead the horses.

More than three dozen soldiers had died by the time they were nearing Winterfell and by then Sansa deeply regretted having been so careless with making everyone believe her to be a witch.

Where before the looks given her had been wary but somehow awed, they were full of sullen anger now. They blamed her for the sickness, she knew, or at least thought she could help and didn't.

Knowing that she actually _could_ help should she wish to, made things only worse for her.

…

Almost miraculously, ravens still sometimes found their way to wherever they made camp at night.

Thus they learned of almost unbelievable events happening in King's Landing. Tyrion Lannister had apparently killed his own father and fled the capital, which now left Cersei in power with no one to challenge her, safe maybe the young queen who probably wouldn't dare and Kevan Lannister, Cersei's uncle, who had a reputation for being good at following orders, but not necessarily at giving them.

The part of the news that was most devastating to Sansa, however, was to learn that Gregor Clegane had been killed at Tyrion Lannister's trial by combat. By Oberyn Martell.

No word of Sandor Clegane or Ryder Hills, no mention that he had at least tried to rid the world of the monster that was his brother. He had just vanished, leaving the role of hero to one who had not even been able to enjoy his victory, because he had died in the fight as well.

With a tremendous effort, she managed not to cry.

This time, she would keep her pain to herself. No one would learn how much it hurt her to have to suffer yet another crushing disappointment when it came to Sandor Clegane. He was supposed to be the chosen one, the hero from the tales of old.

He was supposed to be _her_ hero, proving to all the world and most importantly her family that he was worthy of a princess.

So far, though, he had proven nothing. With Arya stubbornly maintaining that it hadn't been Sandor Clegane who had brought her back, Sansa did not even have that good deed to lay at his door.

 _Ryder said that life is nothing like Old Nan's stories._

Apparently, it really wasn't. Apparently, even those chosen by the Old Gods were only men in the end.

That night, she bid farewell to a dream she had cherished ever since she had thought of Sandor Clegane as the chosen one. She derided herself for her fantasies of seeing him riding up to her brother on a white charger, his banner flying behind him. Laughed at her notion that people would call him the Chosen One, the Slayer of the Mountain that Rides, the saviour of the princesses of Winterfell.

In that dream, Robb had readily agreed to a match between them, glad to approve an alliance the Gods seemed to have ordained. He had given Sandor a lordship and a castle and they had lived happily ever after.

How stupid she had been! How ready to believe in yet another dream that had nothing to do with reality.

If Sandor Clegane would ever come back to her, he would do so on the back of a mean black destrier. He would not have banners and fanfares, because he loathed the trappings of self-importance all the lords loved to surround themselves with. He would scoff at any names and titles trying to praise and elevate him. He would not even want a lordship and a castle and Sansa started to doubt that he ever had wanted her.

Why did her mind insist on glorifying him thus, why could she not think of him as simply the man he was and always had been?

She tried to do just that, and this time she reached farther back than that magical moment in the godswood. His face appeared in her mind as she had known him before that, dark and scowling, silvery bolts of anger shooting from his eyes, out of a face marred by an act of unimaginable brutality.

It had to be the first time since she had come back to her family that she remembered him with his scarred face and it brought back all she had ever felt when confronted with him. Fear, for one thing, but also a sense of cautious gratefulness, the irritation at his hateful way of speaking to her, uncertainty about his meaning, her fascination with his ferocity, his strength. And underlying all that, the absolute and unshakable conviction that he would not hurt her, no matter what.

Even back then, a part of her had always been sure of this.

Her insides hurt with that familiar mixture of loss and longing she had cultivated ever since she'd been back, but if she had hoped that thinking of him as he had been before his transformation would somehow lessen her torment, she was proven wrong.

Remembering him as he had been before he turned into her handsome savior, haloed by golden dust, only served to confuse her more. Everything she thought she had disliked about him suddenly held its own attraction, as if the darkness in him only made his compassion, his kindness and his care of her all the more precious and therefore alluring.

…

Robb had set a punishing pace for Winterfell after the first deaths, splitting the host into an advance force that was to retake Winterfell, consisting of the most able-bodied fighters and a contingent supposed to guard the royal family members with whom he didn't want to part whatever it took. The second contingent, having the care of all the sick and wounded, moved more slowly but was supposed to return to Winterfell no longer than three days after they had reclaimed the castle.

Unfortunately, the towers of Winterfell only came into sight when night already threatened to fall and it was too late to attack the enemy.

From afar, they could see the ruin the once mighty keep had become, could see the banners of House Bolton fluttering in the winds howling over the caved-in roof of the great hall.

A few of the crannogmen who had been sent for reconnaissance came back with even more disturbing details about how much destruction both the Ironborn and later Bolton's bastard had wrought on the castle.

After the news had been brought to him, Robb had commanded everyone to leave his tent so he could think of a plan, but from the way he had looked, Sansa suspected he just meant to weep with both hopelessness and exhaustion.

Despite the fact that sickness had not found anyone of Sansa's family, they were all nearing the end of their strength, their bodies much thinner than when they had left from the Twins weeks ago, their eyes ringed black with lack of proper sleep. Even wrapped in furs and blankets and Clegane's cloak, Sansa had woken a few times each night from being cold to her bones. She had no idea how the soldiers managed without even that much.

They all feared for Jeyne and her baby, because Jeyne suffered from the cold even more than anyone else, since she had been born in the south and never even seen snow, let alone experienced cold before.

Huddling deeper into her own cloak, Sansa made her way through thigh-high rifts of snow to a raised boulder on which her mother stood, looking out to the grey silhouette of what had been her home.

"I've wished and prayed to be back here," her mother said without turning when Sansa had made it to her side, her voice desolate and bleak. "I just wanted to be back. To mourn your father, to love the children I have left, to stitch my life back together."

She sighed and shook her head.

"But it's all gone. The glass-gardens to grow greeneries, the stores most likely emptied by those who have taken all this from us. The people…," a smothered sob came from her then and her shoulders shook.

Sansa had no idea how to comfort her. She could see all of this herself, knew what it meant.

"Lord Bolton was right," her mother continued. "Robb won the war, tricked the trickster, came back alive only to be bested by hunger and cold. Even if we do manage to oust the bastard from the keep, they'll destroy what is still standing just to spite us. There will be not a grain of barley or even one cask of wine left in the cellars, no roof over our heads. We might have won the war, but winter is coming – it's here already – and it will accomplish what none of Robb's other foes could."

With that dire prediction, Catelyn Stark turned and walked away from her, leaving Sansa standing where she was, experiencing the already familiar sensation of feeling guilty of something she had not done.

The time had come, she realized. The time for a miracle.

Around her, golden dust fluttered and materialized.

"I wish," she whispered, "I wish for the bastard's troops to give us no fight so we can win Winterfell back without bloodshed. And I wish it whole again, stores filled, fires burning to welcome us back home."

The fairy looked at Winterfell for a long moment, but then turned back to her.

"Are you sure?" she asked. "Because those are two wishes."

"I am… no, why?"

"Think about it. You wish for an easy victory and for the castle to be as it was before. That makes two."

If Sansa hadn't been so weary, so frozen through, so sad, she might have felt angry and in the mood to argue. Only now, the only emotion left to her was desperation.

There was no way to wish for one without the other. Her mother was right. Even should the victory be an easy one, they'd starve in an empty, destroyed castle. If she only wished for Winterfell to be restored, the attackers would destroy everything again before they were defeated and it would make the fight this much harder if they had the castle in order.

She turned and looked over to the soldiers huddling around the fires. They had walked through snow for weeks, many of them on feet turning black with frostbite. They had to be in pain. They were cold, hungry and tired and looked as if it would not take more than a gust of wind to knock them down so they would never get up again. Most looked at her with feverishly bright eyes that seemed unnaturally large in faces taut with hunger. And they were those who Robb thought were most able to win a fight. There were others in the second contingent much worse off.

So if she wished for Winterfell's restoration only after their victory, there was no telling if there would be a victory at all. They would live, her family at least, since they were protected by her wish, but how would they? As guests of Lord Umber, crammed into his castle that was more a glorified hut than anything else?

And what about all those others? All those who had fought for Robb so faithfully? Followed him through war and hardship? Most of them wouldn't even survive another day, let alone a journey as far as Last Hearth.

Would they all end up like those in the Whispering Wood?

Could she justify gambling with all their lives for what she owed one man? Was her honour, her promise, worth so high a price?

Once again she let her eyes roam over all those men and closed her eyes against the burning of tears in them.

"Listen to what your heart tells you," the fairy said quietly.

 _Sandor_ , she thought, anguished, and when she opened her eyes, tears clung frozen to her eyelashes. _My last wish. It was meant for you, but I can't... I can't. Please forgive me._

"Then let it be two wishes," she said with the last of her strength and then sunk into the snow, sobbing uncontrollably. Weeping as she had not yet done for lost dreams and wishes forever unfulfilled.

…

The next day dawned grey and foggy, Winterfell barely visible in the distance.

Robb stood in his tent when Sansa joined him, surrounded by his lords, all of them wearing identically expressions of tired resignation. None of them expected a victory, Sansa realized. They just wanted it to be over.

"The fog might be in our favour," the Smalljon said, sounding unconvinced of his own words. "If they have archers, they cannot spot us."

"Robb," Sansa said and the men turned to her at once, looking as if glad for the interruption.

Grey Wind stood as well, getting up from where he had lain curled up next to the brazier.

"Winterfell can be taken without bloodshed," she told him, slightly breathless with nerves. "I cannot tell you how it came about, but we will not meet with resistance."

"Sansa," Robb started, sounding pained. "I know we all wish for this..."

"No," she said shaking her head. "This isn't fancy. It is real. If you..." She swallowed, for the moment overcome with fear at the audacity of what she felt compelled to suggest. "If you do not believe me, let me ride out alone."

Grey Wind whined quietly, then trotted over to her, pushing his big head gently against her hand. Absentmindedly, she patted him until he moved further to her side, his meaning clear. He meant to accompany her, wherever she'd go.

If nothing else, it was an encouraging sign.

Robb looked at her, then at his wolf. A wild sort of hope shone in his eyes, a desperate wish to believe in what she offered, despite its improbability. To believe in a miracle.

"I'll come with you," he said, his words barely above a whisper. "I will not let it be said the King of the North left it to his sister to retake his home."

Then he turned to his men.

"I do not expect anyone to join in this mission. If Sansa and I do not come back, you know what to do. Protect my wife and my child, bring them somewhere safe. Do not waste your strength on Winterfell. The bastard will not fare better in an empty, cold castle than we would have."

…

As they made to mount their horses, her mother came charging toward them.

"Has the cold frozen both your brains?" she yelled. "You mean to ride right into the enemy's teeth?"

"Yes, mother," Robb gave back calmly. "Sansa said it's safe."

Her mother levelled a glare at her.

"Sansa, what madness is this?"

Before Sansa could come up with a reply, Robb took a step towards their mother.

"Mother, I ask you to watch your tongue. May I remind you that it was Sansa to whom we all owe our lives?" he asked quietly, but with a determination in his tone that brooked no objection. "May I remind you that she saved us at the Twins? I trust her. Grey Wind trusts her."

"So do I," a booming voice declared behind them and when they both turned, they saw the Greatjon, next to his saddled horse, ready to join them.

"And I!" his son shouted, only a few paces behind his father, leading his own horse with a gleam of hope in his eyes that had not be there before.

"I, too, believe that Lady Sansa knows what she is about," Lord Reed said softly, leading his gelding next to him as he joined the group that began to form a circle around them.

Sansa's eyes widened and then filled with tears as more and more men joined in, declaring their trust and their intention to follow wherever she and Robb would lead them.

Here she was, believing they hated her, feared her for being a witch, when they were so ready to bet their very lives on as little as her word, on a strange notions of a girl of thirteen years.

She blinked her tears away, not intending to appear weak in the face of all this courage and straightened, giving every man around them a bright smile of gratitude.

Her mother's eyes demanded her attention, fearful and desperate, but then something changed in them, turning to mellow resignation.

"So be it," she said on a sigh. "I'll ride with you two. Should this be folly, I will die at my children's side where I belong. Should Sansa be right, there will be much to do for me."

With that she turned and signalled to have her horse brought to her.

…

Their departure from the camp had been delayed for some more minutes by Robb taking leave from his weeping wife, while Sansa's mother loudly and fruitlessly argued with Arya that she had to stay behind.

When she ordered one of the guards to restrain Arya, the man backed away rather quickly when Nymeria jumped in front of her, growling and baring her teeth.

"Oh for the Seven's sake," her mother exclaimed but then stopped herself and shook her head. "It's not as if anyone here listens to me anymore anyway, so you might as well come."

Arya's squeal of delighted glee made the men around them smile a little, as if Arya's exuberance had revived their spirits as well.

The wind battered icy against their faces as they rode on, but curiously enough, the pink banners depicting the flayed man of the Dreadfort hung listless and unmoving.

When they were close enough to be greeted by arrows from those who held the castle, the men let nervous glances roam over the battlements, but there was no sound to be heard and not a single man to be seen. No tell-tale clouds of steam rose from kettles of boiling pitch. The castle appeared empty of life.

Surprised whispers rose up behind Sansa, sounding like a low grumbling, as the men became aware of the fact that the towers looked in much better shape than they had expected, all roofs in order and clearly visible from their vantage point.

When they were about a hundred paces from the closed portcullis, Sansa started to get anxious, wondering how she was supposed to retake the castle – fight or not – if it was barred to her.

She halted her horse to buy herself some time, and everyone behind her halted as well at Robb's signal.

As close as they were, everyone who understood something about defending a castle would have done something by now, but still everything was deadly quiet.

Sansa dismounted and at once Grey Wind sprinted up to her side, pushing his big furry head against her hand.

"Let's do this," she whispered to him, trembling with nerves.

Slowly, hindered by the snow that reached almost to her knees, she walked up to the portcullis.

 _How do I open it?_ she asked silently.

 _Don't worry_ , a tinkling voice replied.

There was nothing else to do but walking on, towards an unmoving obstacle.

Suddenly, the black iron bars of the portcullis started to glow; golden and strangely beautiful.

Then, very slowly, it began to lift.

...

tbc


	12. Aftermath

**_Chapter 12: Aftermath_**

Sansa watched with fascination as the portcullis opened, clearing the way into her home.

It made no sound as it slid upwards; there was none of the usual creaking of metal, of pulled winches and groaning wood, only silence.

Only belatedly did she realize that Robb had stepped to her side.

He looked stunned, eyes wide and unblinking while his throat worked without producing a sound.

Then he shook his head as if to clear it, huffing a quiet laugh.

"Wargs, wolves and witches, huh," he said, "well, it works out better than Bolton might have thought."

Grey Wind was the first to move when the portcullis was halfway up, joined by Nymeria, prompting Sansa to follow. The two wolves gave small yips and whoofs, madly wagging their tails and jumping aimlessly through the snow in joyful anticipation and it seemed only their loyalty to the family held them back from running straight through the gate and reclaiming Winterfell all by themselves.

The wolves' apparent eagerness and their complete lack of fear or wariness gave Sansa and Robb the confidence to follow them, striding toward the gate with steadily mounting speed.

Sansa fell back a little to allow Robb to be the first to step into the yard and the moment might have lent itself to some form of celebration, had not the sight that greeted them been so weirdly disturbing.

The gatehouse was manned by two Bolton guards, slumped over in their booths.

Robb carefully stepped toward them and put a hand on one of the men's necks.

"They're alive," he said wonderingly, "just asleep."

Sansa looked around herself.

She found more men lying around as if having fallen asleep right in the middle of whatever they were doing and the wolves were nosing at them with curiosity and a patent lack of concern that meant none of those men were corpses.

Men had fallen asleep in the sparring ground still holding their wooden swords; serving wenches slumped over the chickens they had been in the midst of plucking, children at their play, curled on the ground, some even with their thumbs in their mouths.

Behind them, the rest of their party had stepped through the gates and she could hear them whispering and mumbling amongst themselves.

"It's not destroyed at all!"

"Looks no different than before."

"Even the glass gardens, not a single pane broken."

"Hey, watch this, even the horses are out cold."

And they were.

Horses were sleeping in their stables, the pigs had lain down to sleep in the mud of their pen, not a single dog barked a welcome or a warning, because they were all soundly asleep. After Robb had sent a few men to scout out the outbuildings, one man came back reporting that even the ravens in the rookery had been found with their beaks tucked beneath their wings.

As the whispering between the men grew louder, Robb put a finger over his lips, signalling his men to be quiet.

"Do not wake them," he whispered. "Bind them as quickly and thoroughly as you can, every man you can find. I'll go with Sansa to look for the bastard."

Before they could go, however, Sansa's mother came up to her, tears in her eyes.

"Thank you," she whispered and then extended a shaking hand to lightly caress her face. "I should not have doubted you."

Sansa swallowed her own tears and nodded, then turned to follow Robb towards the Great Hall.

On the steps leading up to the hall, they saw that apparently not everyone was asleep.

An old man sat huddled on the last step, trembling, thin and clad in rags, a beggar most likely. His head was covered by wisps of thin white hair and he emitted a stench that made Sansa reluctant to take even as much as another step in his direction. He was rocking his upper body back and forth in a never ending, monotonous movement.

"Guess your magic doesn't work on dimwits," Robb said under his breath.

As they neared him, both with their hands covering their noses at the smell, they heard him mumbling something.

"Reek," the man half-mumbled, "My name is Reek, it rhymes with weak."

"That's a fitting name if I ever heard one," Robb said a little more loudly, capturing the old man's attention.

He looked up quickly, but before they could get a good look at his face, lowered it again and continued rocking.

"My name is Reek, it rhymes with squeak," the old man said.

Sansa was about to carefully step around the man to get where they had intended to go, when she noticed a faint golden glow surrounding the pitiful bundle of bones, loose flesh and stinking rags.

"Who are you?" she asked, perplexed, turning back again.

"My name is Reek, it rhymes with freak."

He looked up again after that and as Sansa finally saw his face, his eyes, she stumbled backwards and would have fallen if Robb had not caught her.

"Theon!"

"No, no," the man who had once been the boy they had grown up with protested, looking around himself in wild fear. "My name is Reek, Reek! It rhymes with…"

Next to her, Robb exhaled loudly, then drew a deep breath and roared with inarticulate fury. Theon flinched and cowered, covering his head with his arms, a gesture so pitiful it shocked Sansa to the core.

"No!" Robb hollered. "Your name is Theon and it rhymes with traitor!"

Sansa flinched at Robb's bellowing voice. If anyone was still asleep by now, they would not be for long if he kept this up.

"It rhymes with murderer! With kinslayer."

Robb's sword flew out of its sheath with a hissing, chilling sound.

The glow around Theon intensified and with some horror Sansa realized that back when she had made her wish for her family, Theon had been in her thoughts as well. Not consciously, but somehow there, at the fringe of her awareness.

"No!" she cried, and made a grab for Robb's arm that he had already raised to deliver his revenge for the murder of their brothers. But as much as she wanted justice for them, she had no idea how her spell would turn against Robb if he tried to harm Theon.

Robb spun around, glaring at her.

"Why do you protect him? He killed Bran, killed Rickon who was just a baby, he…"

"Theon."

They turned back to Theon who had a faraway look in his eyes.

"Theon didn't kill his brothers. They ran away. He looked, looked everywhere. The men started laughing at him. He couldn't let them laugh."

Robb stepped closer and grabbed Theon by the scruff of his neck, bringing forth a terrified squeak and another wild look of bottomless fear.

Sansa saw it then, the marks. The strips of raw flesh, skin flayed off it, the carved up ear, the black gaps in what had once been a gleaming white smile with teeth like pearls on a string.

She stumbled back until she hit a wall, glad it kept her upright while her knees buckled under her.

Yes, she hated him, loathed him for killing her brothers, but would she have wished this on him? This destruction of everything he had ever been?

"What. Did. You. DO?" Robb demanded, shaking him.

"The millers' boys," Theon said, trembling and tearful. "They had the same height, the same age. Even Luwin couldn't tell it wasn't them."

"They're alive," Sansa breathed, as another wave of emotion threatened her ability to keep upright.

Her brothers were alive and suddenly she was as sure of it as she could be. And if they were alive, it meant they were protected as well.

Maybe, maybe they would even come back.

…

"Three wishes?", Robb asked, as if he had trouble understanding what she had told him. Him and their closest circle, which included not only their family but most of the lords bannerman as well.

Sansa nodded. She had seen no sense in making a secret of it anymore. If anyone still doubted her, they had better come up with an explanation for how the castle had been restored to its former state, how it had come about that every breathing thing inside its walls had been deeply asleep up until the moment when Robb had wakened a bound Ramsay Bolton with bucket full of freezing water to his face.

The men had been prepared to deal with the chaos that had arisen then, with the Bolton men suddenly finding themselves bound or thrown into cells and with servants, women and children disoriented and afraid.

Robb had decided to have "the North take its own revenge" on Ramsay Bolton and some of his allies. He had ordered them to be tied to stakes outside of Winterfell's walls, Ramsay clad in the rags they had gotten from Theon.

That night, while those men slowly froze to death outside, he had asked her if she would consent to tell them how all of this was possible.

She had nodded and everyone had taken his or her place around her, all of them looking a bit like children eagerly waiting for a most riveting bed-time story.

With a smile, she realized it might well become one, decades from now, only by then it would have lost all the ugliness surrounding the magic and the children listening to it would not learn how desperate the circumstances were under which those wishes were made and fulfilled.

"Yes," she answered. "I was granted three wishes by a fairy. I know how that sounds, but you have seen with your own eyes how my last two were fulfilled."

Each person around her nodded to themselves, a faraway look in their eyes as they contemplated what they had been told.

"So you used the first wish to save yourself, the second to save us at the Twins and the third to bring us home?" Robb inquired, quite obviously the one who was the least surprised, because he had thought along similar lines as far back as the Twins.

Sansa shook her head.

"No," she said, swallowing a lump in her throat. "It wasn't my wish that brought me back, but someone else's."

Most of her audience looked puzzled.

"You mean to say," her mother started quietly, "that Sandor Clegane was as blessed as you are and sacrificed one of his wishes to get you to safety?"

She gave her mother a grateful smile. "Yes, that is what I meant to say."

Her mother looked unconvinced and opened her mouth to say more, but Arya interrupted her.

"But… how… why… no," she stuttered. "What's it with those fairies, throwing around wishes left and right? Why did I not get any, I sure as Seven Hells could have used them many times over!"

Her voice had gained in volume while she spoke and by the end she was almost yelling, her voice thick with tears and trembling with a hurt so deep it made Sansa wince in sympathy.

"Have you any idea… do you even…," she couldn't go on because she was shaken by great, heaving sobs.

Her mother turned and gently cradled her youngest daughter to her.

Sansa was grateful that she just held her, did not say anything about the will of the Gods not being meant to be understood by mere humans. Sansa doubted it would have soothed Arya. They still did not know what she had been through, but what they had figured out by now was in whose custody she had been for a while and it didn't take much to deduce what horrors she must have seen.

"You were protected by my first wish," Sansa said haltingly, not sure if that information would be appreciated. "I wished for my family to be safe, all of those still living. Maybe it wasn't circumstance that it was Sandor Clegane who found you and brought you back."

Arya did not blow up at her at that as she had half feared, but sniffled and knuckled her tears out of her eyes.

"Wasn't the Hound," Arya gave back, but her words lacked their usual conviction.

Then she suddenly started to laugh, somewhat unhinged and shaky.

"Thinking of it," she said, "I actually think I had my own fairy who offered to fulfil three of my wishes. I just made a mess of it and wished for the wrong people to die."

"Doesn't sound like a fairy to me," Sansa said quietly. "They do not kill."

"Well, this one did and lemme tell you he was really good at it. Jaquen H'ghar was his name."

After some prodding, Arya offered the whole story. About the faceless man whose life she had saved. About how in return she was to tell him three names. How the men bearing those names did not survive more than one night.

When she finished her tale, Jeyne was quietly sobbing in Robb's arms and her mother held Arya so tightly, it looked as if she was about to crush her. The expressions on most of the men's faces ranged from horrified and shocked to pained and angry.

"I could have wished for Joffrey to die," Arya said into the silence. "Or for Tywin Lannister. At the very least I could have wished Gregor Clegane dead. But no…," she shook her head and then lifted her eyes to Sansa's. "I think you did a much better job with your wishes than I would have."

If the sadness about having to abandon every hope to see Sandor Clegane again would not have weighted as heavily on her as it did, she might have been genuinely happy about that compliment.

"Does that mean Bran and Rickon…," her mother started but stopped, trying her hardest to keep her composure.

"Yes, mother," Sansa answered the unspoken question, "I am convinced they are safe, protected by my wish."

"And Theon?" Robb asked. "Is this why you didn't let me kill him, because he's protected as well?"

Sansa bit her lip and nodded, feeling guilty.

"I must have thought of him as family when I made that wish, just the way I think of Jeyne and her baby as family."

A muscle in Robb's cheek twitched as he ground his teeth, his eyes sparking anger.

"He doesn't deserve to live," he finally said. "He might not have killed our brothers, but there are countless innocent lives lost because of him, the Miller's boys among them."

Sansa lowered her head, looking down at her hands.

"Don't you think the boy has paid for his sins, Your Grace?" Lord Reed asked gently. "I do not doubt he had very often wished he was dead instead of suffering what the bastard put him through."

Robb gave a tight nod.

"The maester told me… in thorough detail."

For a moment, he closed his eyes, his throat working as if he was fighting a wave of sudden sickness.

Sansa knew that Robb had ordered that Theon should be treated as any high ranking prisoner would. He was given food and a guarded room, had been washed and seen to by a maester, his wounds treated, but even the maester had said that most of the damage done to him was irreversible, which included the damage to his mind and soul. In the maester's opinion, Theon would only ever remain a shadow of what he once had been.

In many ways, Sansa found that a sentence worse than death.

"So the wish for our safety was your first one," Robb concluded, apparently wishing to leave the topic for Theon behind. "That wish was responsible for our victory over Lord Walder's treachery?"

Robb asked that question in a slightly surly tone, as if he didn't much like the idea that it was a fairy's doing that they had come out of the Red Wedding in one piece.

"No," she said, smiling at her brother. "The fairy's magic merely made me see what was planned. We might all have survived one way or another, but it was your achievement to turn that situation into such a victory, with no lives lost but those of the enemy."

Robb made an honest effort to supress a very pleased smile.

"And Winterfell?"

Sansa sighed.

"I saw no other choice than to wish for two things. For an easy victory and for Winterfell to be restored to its former state. I did not know what else to do and I had no one to ask."

"You could have asked me," Robb pointed out the obvious, even managing to sound slightly hurt.

"Would you have believed me?" she asked quietly.

"I went with you, didn't I?"

Again she looked down at her folded hands.

He was right, of course. There had been no hesitation in him when he joined her, no doubt. Had it been a mistake to put to little faith in her brother's ability to believe her? Could this have been different if she had trusted him more?

Then Robb sighed deeply.

"I honestly do not know if I could have believed in three wishes," he admitted. "I went with you because I thought you might have seen something, but this...," he shook his head. "And even had I known, I cannot think of something I might have done differently. You did as well as was possible, Sansa. You saved us all. Again. The North will be forever in your debt."

He stood then, looking around himself with all the authority of his position.

"I charge you, every single one of you, with keeping this a secret. Winterfell was taken back because it was always meant to be home to the Starks and every bit of magic happening was because a Stark came back to Winterfell. I ask all of you to gainsay everyone who calls my sister a witch. I will not have her name slandered and I will not foster hopes and expectations she cannot help but disappoint."

Around them, people nodded or approved with spoken words and Sansa gave her brother a grateful smile.

…

Even before they had reached Winterfell, Robb had often assigned Greatjon Umber to be her escort and some sort of personal guard. For one thing, because he seemed to be one of the few men not intimidated by her purported use of magic, for another, because Sansa had taken a liking to him ever since he had been the first to welcome her back. Privately, she was grateful Robb had chosen someone with Lord Umber's stature. While she was sure Lord Reed and other similar fighters were just as able to protect her, she knew she would feel safer protected by someone who towered over her and possessed visible strength of body.

Like Sandor Clegane.

So it wasn't unusual for the Greatjon to accompany her on her walks. Most of the time, she just hurried to the godswood to offer her prayers before the cold drove her inside again, but today, one day after Robb had spoken his sentence over Ramsay Bolton, morbid curiosity made her take a walk atop Winterfell's wall, looking down at the motionless figures of the men tied to the stakes.

The servants had whispered amongst themselves that Ramsay had screamed for a long time, even when his men had already fallen silent, until he, too, had been quiet. They said the sudden silence had been the most disturbing part of this execution.

Had it been particularly cruel, to have them die like that, slowly freezing to death? Should she have insisted that Robb just hanged them or took their heads?

"It's been too merciful a death for them, if you ask me," the Greatjon's rumbling voice broke into her thoughts as if he had read them. "Freezing is painless, peaceful even. Much like going to sleep."

"They said he screamed."

Lord Umber huffed a laugh.

"That he did," he said. "Because he knew he was going to die and that he would become a feast for crows and wolves afterwards. I reckon that's not how he thought that tale would end for him. He screamed with rage and anger, much like a spoiled child not getting its will."

"Which one is he?" she asked.

The Greatjoin pointed. "The one in the middle of the seven. He should have died first, what with only those rags to cover him, but I guess his rage kept him warm longer than the others who just wept and pleaded."

"How do you know it's been painless?"

He turned fully to her, a slight smile hidden in his beard.

"Had a close call last winter myself," he told her without hesitation. "Got lost on a hunt, horse broke its leg so I had to kill it. Rest of the party was far away and didn't hear me holler. I tried to find some shelter, a cave or something to light a fire, but it was so fiercely cold, I soon couldn't feel my arms and legs anymore and I was so very tired. So I just sat down and then that very peaceful, warm feeling came over me. I knew it was the end, but I felt no fear, only… peace."

His eyes turned inward as he spoke and he looked as if he was reliving that moment of peacefulness.

"You were saved… obviously," she said, eager to learn how that tale had ended.

At once, his eyes began to glitter again with that curious sparkle that could make him look like a young man if one only looked at his eyes.

"My boy found me, had to slap me a couple of times to rip me out of death's loving embrace."

The big man laughed loudly at the recollection.

"I'd wager he quite enjoyed slapping his old man like that, payback for every time I tanned his hide when he got into mischief when he was little."

Sansa smiled and nodded, but still couldn't shake the feeling of wrongness as she looked down at the frozen bodies of their erstwhile enemies.

…

Later that night, as she prepared for bed, a knock sounded on her door.

Wrapping her warm robe more tightly around herself, she bade her visitor to enter.

Robb came in, looking a bit sheepish and much more just her brother than a king.

"I didn't mean to disturb you, if you'd rather go to bed?"

She smiled at him and gestured for him to take a seat in front of the fireplace and then curled up into an armchair herself, looking at Robb expecting him to speak.

"There is something I meant to ask, a question I didn't want to ask in front of everyone down in the Hall."

Sansa nodded for him to continue. She felt no apprehension at whatever he meant to ask. She had disclosed every last of her secrets today. There was nothing he did not already know.

"You gave your wishes for everyone of us. You had three and you sacrificed every single one so we could live and survive and do so in comfort and safety."

He made it sound so very noble, the way he put it, when in truth she had done most of this for herself. Because she could not have suffered to lose whom she had thought were her only surviving family members, because she wanted to live and survive in comfort and safety.

"What have you given up on, Sansa? What were the wishes staying unfulfilled now, because you had to pay for my mistakes?"

Slowly, she lowered her gaze to her lap, to her folded hands.

She'd been wrong. There were still secrets left to tell. Not secrets as in veiled knowledge, but as in unspoken dreams and fantasies that existed only in her own heart and mind.

"Does it still matter?"

"It matters to me," he said. "You paved my way, ensured victories I had no right to, because I'd made so many wrong decisions. If there is anything that would be in my power to give, just say the word."

She leaned towards her brother then and put her hand over his hands that he had balled to fists in his lap in self-recrimination.

"You made wrong choices for the right reasons," she said softly, trying to give him a smile that was to convey she meant it. "You failed because you loved where you should not have and because you trusted where trust was misplaced. I made those mistakes as well and they have cost our father's life. If you are able to forgive me, you should be able to forgive yourself."

Robb shook his head.

"It's not the same," he said. "I am king."

A spark of anger ignited in her, flickered and made her next words sharper than she intended.

"You are human, Robb," she said. "The crown doesn't make you infallible, it doesn't make you always right. I've known two kings who thought it did and they're both dead. I wouldn't want you to end like them."

The closed fists under her hand softened a bit, but Sansa couldn't tell if she had gotten through to him.

"Your wishes, Sansa," he said. "Please tell me."

She was about to tell him that it wasn't in his power to fulfil any of them, but then a memory struck, the shard of a dream.

"You gave me a promise at Riverrun," she said. "I wish for you to keep it. I wish for you to accept my choices when it comes to marriage, no matter what they may be."

Blue eyes, so very much like her own met hers, questioning, searching and apparently finding something she'd thought well hidden.

But to her relief, he did not voice his question, did not ask her about whatever he might have thought.

He just nodded.

"You have my word as your king," he said and then grinned. "And, more importantly, you have my word as your brother."

Standing up as if to leave he lifted a finger.

"Because," he said, the grin still lingering. "A king might not be right every time, but big brothers always are."

With a laugh, he dodged the pillow she threw at him and slipped out of the door.

…

After Robb left, she had not even shed her robe when another visitor announced herself.

In this case with a hovering cloud of golden dust.

"You have to burn the corpses," the fairy said, without a greeting and without preamble. "Nothing dead should be left unburned this coming winter. There's enough evil already walking."

She didn't quite understand all of the fairy's meaning, but she remembered the unease she had felt at seeing the corpses, more so than usual and she resolved to ask Robb to do as the fairy wished when next she saw him. He would not hesitate to do as she wished, of that she was sure.

"I will see that it is done," she said.

"Very well," the fairy replied. "I trust you are satisfied how all of this turned out?" the fairy asked, reminding Sansa of a saleswoman inquiring about the quality of her goods.

She could have lied then. Maybe it would have been the polite thing to do. After all, the rules had been clear and she did have only those three wishes. Just as Arya had her regrets regarding her own fairy of death, so had Sansa and suddenly she found it would be a lie if she would not tell her.

"I still think I owed my last wish to Sandor Clegane," she said. "It feels like a failure, it feels incredibly selfish that I used all of them on me."

At hearing that, the fairy made a very un-magical "pfff" sound.

"Selfish?" she said then, her voice even higher pitched than usual. "You saved countless lives, not just those of your family. I'd hardly call that selfish."

" _My_ family," Sansa replied, her voice growing louder with agitation with every word. " _My_ home, _my_ safety, _my_ comfort, _my_ not having to starve and freeze. I can't see how this could have been any _more_ selfish!"

The tiny golden girl sighed and then fluttered to rest on Sansa's hand, where she proceeded to look at her earnestly.

"No, Sansa, you cannot see it this way. You acted out of the generosity in your heart as the gods knew you would. Everything else…," she stopped for a moment and gave her a smile full of hidden meaning, "Well, let's say that there are some things in this world that have their very own magic with which even fairies don't like to interfere."

Again not quite understanding what the fairy meant with that last statement, Sansa mulishly shook her head.

"I will be forever in his debt."

The fairy smiled indulgently.

"If Sandor Clegane was here, he'd tell you he did not give you his wish for you to be in his debt. He meant to see you safe and well. That was his wish and this is what you owe him."

This time, it was clearer to her what the fairy meant to say. The Hound would have wanted her to make exactly the choices she had made. To see that his wish had not been wasted, that he had not saved her from Joffrey only for her to die somewhere else.

It should have made her feel better, but it didn't.

"I meant to help him in his trials."

The fairy looked as if surprised that this was something Sansa knew about.

"His trials are his alone to go through and all you can do to help him is to include him in your prayers."

So there were trials, Sansa concluded and although that meant danger for him, it was the one thing that DID make her feel better.

"I will," she said. "Thank you."

There was more she could say, but she didn't. How to explain to a magical being her dreams of the kiss she had given him, only that nowadays she imagined the kiss to be more of the kind Robb and Jeyne gave each other. That she frequently dreamed of him undressing, preparing to climb into bed with her, only to find herself waking short of breath and with her blood simmering, never knowing what might have happened afterwards.

The fairy nodded and bade her good bye, then slowly started to disintegrate. Before the golden dust completely vanished, though, her voice could be heard again, almost inaudible as if from far off.

"He wanted you to remember him. He didn't wish for it, but I knew it was in his heart. Maybe it's a wish that you can grant without my help."

Her reply was equally inaudible because it was whispered around a lump in her throat. Happiness, as golden as fairy dust, rushed through her and made her want to weep and laugh at the same time.

Sandor Clegane wanted her to remember him!

"I won't forget him," she whispered, smiling. "I swear I won't. Ever."

…

The pyre where the corpses of the bastard and his men had been burned were still smoking when Robb's lord bannermen rode past them, on their way back to their own keeps before cold and snowfall would keep them in Winterfell for as long as winter would last this time.

Those still too sick to make the journey would stay at Winterfell.

With all the former inhabitants of the keep itself and the nearby Wintertown killed, they could use every hand once those men were healthy again.

The black and grey columns of marching and riding men were soon out of sight due to the swirling snow and Sansa felt a sense of loss at the thought that she would now have to live without the comforting and oftentimes uplifting company of Lord Umber.

 _I wish_ , she thought and then habitually stopped herself, only to remember she was now free to think such thoughts without having to fear to waste a wish.

 _I wish for all of them to have a safe and swift journey home,_ she finished her interrupted thought. I wish for a leg of mutton and a steaming cup of mulled wine waiting for them at their return.

Then, unbidden, other thoughts came to her, wishes she had not dared to think for so long, she had forgotten she had them. As if the knowledge that some of her wishes could be fulfilled had stunted her ability to blindly wish for things: real, imagined, impossible or improbable.

 _I wish my father would be alive_ , she thought, tears pooling in her eyes as she acknowledged how impossible this wish would always be. I wish for Bran and Rickon to come back to us, hale and healthy. I wish for Arya to forget about the demons plaguing her sleep. I wish that Jeyne and her baby will be healthy when she gives birth.

I wish for winter to be over and for Westeros to live in peace.

She stared unseeingly out into the snow until her eyes smarted.

I wish for Sandor Clegane to persevere in his trials. I wish for him to remember me as I remember him and I wish for him to come to me as soon as he can.

...

tbc


	13. Intermission - Killing Monsters

**_Author's notes:_** Sorry for the long way. During summer, writing unfortunately always has to take the back seat.

 ** _Chapter 13: Intermission – Killing Monsters_**

Sandor huddled deeper into his cloak as another early morning breeze tried to penetrate the layers of cloth and leather in which he covered himself to keep warm.

Winter had come to Westeros and even here, not more than a week's ride from King's Landing, the nights were freezing cold and the days only marginally better. They had no snow yet, but frost clung white to naked branches, the ground was dusted with a glittering layer of ice and every exhaled breath turned into a foggy cloud before it dispersed into cold air.

People with some sense stayed somewhere near a fire during the night and not very far from it during the day.

Sadly, he couldn't afford alerting his prey to his presence with a fire, so he sat on his uncomfortable perch inside a leafless tree, partly shrouded by early morning mist to wait for his quarry to appear.

Lower in the tree's branches, Sandor could see the silvery white mane of one of his companions.

Grumbling, he thought he should have asked Geralt to cover his head, so his gleaming white hair wouldn't stand out like a beacon. Then again, he trusted him to know what he was doing. Never in his life had he known a better hunter than Geralt.

They had first met when Sandor had stood amidst a pack of rabid dogs, trying to get the upper hand on them. He'd always loved dogs; the few fond memories he had retained from his childhood were from spending time with his grandfather in the kennels, but his months roaming the Reach and the Riverlands had made him wary of any sign that dogs were close by.

One of the many evil outcomes of any war were the dogs left to fend for themselves. Soldiers killed people, slaughtered livestock and burned houses, but they invariably left the dogs alive. Dogs who first turned to feeding on corpses until they forgot the distinction between a dead human and a living one and attacked everything that promised a full belly. Crawling with vermin, diseased and starving, they were a menace that even the few packs of wolves roaming the woods took care to avoid.

Without Geralt, Sandor might well have lost the fight that day.

Once they stood over the remnants of the pack, they had regarded each other warily, sizing each other up, none of them wasting time with bandying meaningless phrases.

Looking back, it probably was one of the things that had made Sandor like the man from the start, that he only spoke if absolutely necessary.

As if on cue, they had both drawn their still bloody swords again, circled each other and then attacked. Not viciously, not to kill, but to test the other's strength and to find his weaknesses.

Geralt, Sandor found out almost immediately, was one of the quickest swordsmen he'd ever had the misfortune to fight against. He wasn't slow himself, but he could hold his own against the man only on account of his longer reach and the strength behind his attacks that the other man knew better than to try to parry.

The sparring had been over after a mere two minutes, both of them having learned what they needed to know.

"Geralt Rivers," the man had introduced himself, earning more of Sandor's approval by not trying to shake hands.

"Ryder Hill," Sandor had replied, so comfortable with his new identity by then, he often forgot even to think if any given situation would allow to use his true name.

The corner of Geralt's mouth had twitched in wry amusement, acknowledging both their bastard status, even if it was a lie in Sandor's case. Then again, you never knew, maybe the white-haired one was a knight in disguise as well. He certainly knew how to wield a sword better than any commoner had a right to - Hells, better than most knights - and he had a sort of distinctiveness to his sharply-cut features that one usually only associated with nobility. He also looked way younger than the colour of his hair suggested.

"I could use a man like you."

Sandor hadn't been able to hide a grin at the man's straightforward approach. Again, the tone of voice didn't quite say "lowborn" and neither did his bearing, even if the accent did.

"So could I," Sandor replied with a smirk. "What are you hunting?"

"Monsters," the man said with a wry tilt to one corner of his mouth. "All the things that the war has turned feral. Don't care much if it's dogs or deserters. You?"

Sandor had shrugged his shoulders, trying to think how much of his true purpose he should reveal.

"A rabid dog."

A silvery eyebrow rose.

"Only one?"

"A big one."

The man seemed to need a minute to mull that over, while Sandor had studied his face. Geralt looked to be in his mid thirties and he had not lied about hunting monsters, because his face surely told a tale of violence, with one remarkable cut down half his face that slashed through the middle of his eyebrow and ran down to his cheek, apparently having missed his eye by a hair's breadth. A dog seemed to have tried to take a bite off Geralt's neck, if the teeth-marks there were anything to go by. And as if the white hair and scarred face wasn't enough to make the man stand out, he had the most extraordinary eyes, a glowing amber that was almost wolf-like in its piercing intensity.

"You can join us, if you'd like to."

Sandor had nodded, even before he knew who exactly "us" were.

His months roaming the lands had taught him that a man alone, no matter how skilled a fighter, needed quite a bit of luck to stay alive. A man had to sleep and wash and piss and if you had no one to cover your back while you did, more often than not someone would take advantage of your lack of watchfulness.

With a jolly fighter like Geralt Rivers, Sandor's life was bound to get much easier.

…

"Us" turned out to be two men. One of them a dwarf, not much taller than the Imp, but with shoulders almost as broad as Sandor's and a mighty red beard that reached almost to his belt. Zoltan Chivray was an almost irritating well of good humour and ribald jokes, but was pretty handy with a crossbow and a menace with the heavy battle axe he carried, which in Sandor's eyes made up for quite a lot of flaws.

Unfortunately, the third man – a bard named Dandelion – was handy only with the lute he always carried with him and a hindrance instead of a help in any fight. Why Geralt insisted he needed to be part of a group of men on the hunt, Sandor had yet to understand.

Dandelion seemed a foppish fool with his flashy clothes and pretty face, but he was smarter than he let on, able to talk himself out of every situation and into any woman's smallclothes. He was also a never ceasing source of any gossip that was to be had and it wasn't long before Dandelion had figured what pieces of news Sandor was most interested in.

He learned of his brother's death at the hands of Oberyn Martell and although he searched his soul long and hard for weeks afterwards, he couldn't find it in himself to feel cheated of his revenge.

Dandelion said he had died screaming. That he had suffered for long days before he finally succumbed to the poison Martell had touched him with before he himself had died under the brutal force of Gregor's fist.

It seemed justice had been done and he was surprised that it didn't bother him at all. Apparently, he had never truly wished to kill Gregor, just wished him dead.

What _did_ bother him was the news he heard from Dandelion that a new Kingsguard had emerged seemingly out of nowhere, only weeks after Gregor's death. A formerly never heard-of knight named Robert Strong, who never talked, never showed his face and – if rumours were to be believed – never ate or slept.

Forced by his own experiences to believe in magic, it was no stretch for Sandor to believe that there had to be magic much darker, much more evil than whatever he had come in contact with and there was no doubt in his mind as to who was inside that white armour.

And there was no doubt who was destined to kill that… whatever it was.

Having come to this decision, he had revealed his true identity to his companions, expecting them to turn from him once they knew his name and his purpose, but they had only nodded.

"Guess you'll need some help," Zoltan just stated and that was that.

...

The branch he was sitting on dug uncomfortably into Sandor's ass as he shifted for the hundredth time, the only outward sign of his nervousness.

He peered into the trees on the other side of the clearing, trying to discern a flash of a red beard or a scrap of the hideous purple waistcoat Dandelion wore these days, but the men had well concealed themselves.

There was no sign yet of the riders they expected, the small contingent of men sent to escort Lord Baelish back from the Vale of Arryn. The state of finances in King's Landing had gone from bad to worse after Tywin Lannister's death and now everyone believed they were in need of a master of coin who could magically fill the kingdom's depleted coffers again.

Age and loss, it seemed, had not served to make Cersei any smarter than she had been before. If only half of the rumours Dandelion had unearthed were true, Cersei was about to ruin by sheer stupidity everything her father had tried to achieve.

Sandor had neither the inclination nor the means to stop her, but he could at least try to stop one of her tools.

Afterwards...

He tried to focus on the task at hand, but with nothing worthwhile to do but wait, his thoughts strayed to where they frequently did when he let them.

Because the news he craved most when asking Dandelion were not those about Cersei or Gregor or Robert Strong. They were those about her, about Sansa.

Every time she was mentioned, he listened with bated breath, a deep ache inside of him like a gaping hole that nothing could fill. Still, he could not get enough of hearing of her, of experiencing that odd pain thinking of her brought to his chest. It made him want to get up and saddle Stranger and ride north until he reached Winterfell, until he could see her again and tell her all the things that had been left unspoken. Offer her all he was and all he had to give.

The temptation had been almost unbearable back when he had stood concealed under a rocky outcropping next to the drawbridge leading to the Frey's towers, hearing her calling his name in a keening voice so full of anguish, he would have thought her in mortal danger had he not seen with his own eyes that she wasn't.

Everything inside him had wanted to follow that voice, to soothe whatever pain she felt, to assure her that he was well and none the worse for all the upheaval her sudden departure had brought, despite it having been a near thing that he was still alive.

He'd known Cersei was out for his blood the minute she heard of Sansa's disappearance. Not that it had anything to do with Sansa, but with the fact that no-one spurned Cersei's advances and lived to tell the tale.

Surprisingly, it was due to the Imp that Sandor still had his head where it belonged. Quite obviously thrilled at the idea of thwarting his sister's unhidden thirst for revenge, the Imp had somehow managed to convince the small council that it would be a terrific idea to send Sandor after the very girl he had supposedly helped in her escape. If he'd not been so glad to have evaded beheading, he would have laughed right then and there.

More good luck – quite probably not luck, but some sort of divine intervention – had made him stumble upon the bunch of fools who called themselves the Brotherhood without Banners, with little Arya Stark right in their midst.

It had given him a pang every night when he heard her recite her little list of people she meant to see dead, to hear that he was on that list as well for obvious reasons and it was probably the first time he was truly glad that people were unable to recognize him. Even the little she-wolf had apparently never bothered to see that there was an actual face under his scars.

Only Sansa ever had, and as she called for him, his whole being burned to run to her. He could've claimed to be someone else and knowing Sansa, she would have let him get away with the lie. He could have offered his services to her brother and be sure to be accepted on grounds of having saved the she-wolf.

He could've been close to her, see that she was protected.

He could have and at that moment he could not have said if there was anything else in his life that he had ever wanted more.

 _It's the wrong way to go_ , a tinkling voice had reminded him. _You are meant for other tasks._

"She sounds in pain," he had said to no one in particular, because the voice was only in his head.

 _It's nothing you can help her with. You might see her again, once you complete your trials._

He hadn't understood the part about trials, but he knew well enough he was not yet done in the south, despite how much he wished it. Gregor was still alive and terrorizing the Riverlands and he felt it his responsibility to do what he could to end this, one way or another.

So he had stood in agony until Sansa's cries had subsided, the cold rain washing away any warm wetness that might or might not have leaked from his eyes.

…

As time went on, he had started to chide himself a fool for his fancy, for his constant urge to abandon all he was doing and turn towards Winterfell.

For one thing, there was only white, cold death to be found north of the Neck. Snow as high as a castle wall and bitter cold so unforgiving, that even a fire would not be enough to keep man and beast from freezing to death.

And even if not, the distance between him and Sansa Stark could not only be measured in leagues, it was measured in importance and status and wealth, nothing of which he had to his name.

If her brother had the sense the gods gave a toad, he would never give his sister to a man like him. Hells, he wouldn't either if he was in Robb Stark's place.

But sometimes, in his dreams or in the blessed limbo between wakefulness and sleep, reality had no sway over him and couldn't keep himself from fantasizing, from imagining. She came to him at times during the night, an older version of the Sansa he had known in King's Landing, with knowing smiles and knowing touches, whispering loving words to him, caressing and stroking all the right places, until he woke sweating and panting and painfully hard.

At the beginning, there had been some hope that his obsession with her would fade with time, but the longer it went on the more that hope dwindled. He had held to his hatred for Gregor for more than twenty years, he was not likely to forget Sansa in a fraction of that time.

She had changed him and in some of his darker moods he wasn't sure if she'd changed his life for the better.

After his first two wishes, he had everything he could ever hoped to have. By his own virtue, he had climbed as high as any man of his birth could possible go. He was a fucking Kingsguard and could even be a knight if he wished it. With the face the fairy had given him, he could have had a life thousands would envy him for.

But then he'd thrown all that away in a heartbeat. For her. And the worst thing was, he knew he would do it again.

Not because of her shy kiss and her compassion, not because he wanted the woman he knew she'd become, but because he would have despised himself forever if he hadn't. What good was a handsome face if you couldn't look at yourself in the mirror, too ashamed of the coward you have become? What worth was there to you if you thought yourself worthless?

Saving Sansa had given him a purpose and a sense of self-worth he had never had before, given him the conviction that he was more than an obedient dog, that he held his fate in his own hands, kings and fairies be damned. She had set him free.

 _Almost,_ he thought ruefully. Because by now he had resigned himself to the fact that he would never be free of _her_ , regardless of whatever separated them.

The one to confirm this conviction had been Geralt, when one night he decided to share a story Sandor would not have believed had he not known that it was true that sometimes people were granted three wishes.

Geralt, as it turned out, had had his own run-in with a fairy, although he called it a jinn. At hearing that, Sandor was convinced that their meeting had not been as coincidental as he had first thought and as he kept listening, he found himself somewhat relieved that he wasn't the only one who'd fucked up most of the chances the three wishes presented.

Like Sandor, Geralt had wasted his first two wishes as well, not even knowing that he had them. And he, too, had used his last to save a woman he had fallen for.

Even after more than five years, Geralt was no more free of her than Sandor was of Sansa and it was just as sorry a tale as his own, because here they were, both without the women they apparently were forever bound to.

Dandelion, ever the indiscrete one, revealed what Geralt had omitted from his story. That he sometimes went to see the beautiful highborn lady he'd saved and that she always took him to her bed against her better judgement, only to make him feel bad about it afterwards, vowing it would be the last time.

It explained why the man sometimes vanished for a couple of days, only to come back with red-rimmed eyes, a black mood and a thirst for wine only limited by what he could manage to drink before passing out.

If nothing else, those incidents taught Sandor the futility of the ideas he entertained about offering Sansa his services as a retainer; as a guard, a sworn shield or in any other capacity she or her family deemed good enough for him.

He would not condemn both Sansa and himself to this hell of always reaching for something you could not grasp. Having lived half a life before, he knew he could not do it again and he would not ask it of her.

Maybe it was presumptuous to think she felt as bound to him as he did to her, maybe she'd forgotten him already and if so, as much as it hurt, at least it would mean that one of them was free to live a life of happiness at some point.

If anyone deserved it, it was her.

…

A weak winter sun was shyly peeking over the horizon in a bleached yellow glow that denoted its waning power, when Sandor finally heard the rhythmic clopping of horses' hooves.

True to the intelligence they'd been given, a group of twelve riders, riding single file, made its way through the wood. Only two of them were Kingsguard and at the top of the column rode the white-armoured colossus Sandor had been lying in wait for.

Slowly, as not to give away their position by a sound, he lifted his crossbow to his eyes and aimed it at one of the riders behind Robert Strong.

What sounded like a chaffinch shrilled a loud call from a nearby tree and at the signal, three quarrels loosened at once, each hitting its mark.

Before the men even had marshalled their wits to assess the situation, three more bolts tore through plate and mail and flesh, their impact kicking the men off their horses.

Then, with a mighty yell that would have made Sandor laugh out loud in a different situation, Geralt jumped from the branch he'd been sitting on and ran full-speed up to the group of riders.

They were perplexed for a few precious second, staring dim-wittedly at the white-haired attacker who seemingly witlessly ran toward a group of six horsed and heavily armoured men, himself only armed with a two-handed sword.

Their distraction bought Sandor and Zoltan enough time to shoot two more men from their horses until it occurred to the riders that there was more than one attacker. Lifting their shields, they once again turned against Geralt.

Sandor jumped down from the tree, landing with a roll on the soft cushion of moss and dead leaves he had prepared beforehand to soften his fall and did his own version of running against the riders with his sword drawn, his battle-cry a low roar like a bear's, while Zoltan did the same on their other flank, brandishing his mighty axe, yelling as if he was leading an army into battle.

The horses whinnied and sidled around nervously, afraid at the sudden noise and the smell of blood from the eight men lying dead on the ground. Quite a bit of good luck that not all of those horses were battle trained.

Geralt and Zoltan wasted no time and started attacking the remaining three men-at-arms, while Sandor faced the giant in white who was rumoured to have once been his brother.

The monster was wearing a great-helm much like the one Gregor had preferred. No eyes could be seen behind the small slit in the helm's visor, but Sandor felt himself being regarded with the cold interest of someone observing a bug he is about to crush underfoot.

In its arrogance, the thing didn't even do what Sandor had expected. He had been prepared for Strong to try and ride him down.

Instead, the giant dismounted as if he had all the time in the world, while a couple of yards next to him, his men died to rapid-fire slashes of Geralt's sword and the sure aimed swings of Zoltan's battle axe.

When Strong stood only a few feet away, it seemed to Sandor that smoky blackness crawled out of every crevice of his armour and only seconds later, he gagged when his nose was assaulted by a stench so horrible, he understood why the men-at-arms had kept their distance from this thing.

It smelled like rot and decay, like old death and gangrene.

Where the black, crawling smoke hit the grass around Strong's feet, the grass instantly wilted and yellowed and if Sandor had needed any more proof that this thing was a monster in need of being killed for good, he had it seeing this.

Only he had no idea how to kill something that quite obviously was already dead.

With no hurry, the thing drew its sword.

Sandor at once recognized the six and a half foot long, dented and grey monstrosity his brother used to wield one-handed, just as this creature did.

Wit a yell that was as much meant to give himself courage as to irritate his foe, hoping the monster was as susceptible to noise as Gregor had been, Sandor rushed at it, intending to dodge around it at the last moment.

As he had hoped, the thing was even slower than Gregor had been and ducking beneath the arc of the big sword and coming out on the other side wasn't a problem at all.

Putting all his might behind the thrust, Sandor pushed his sword in between two pieces of the white armour, hoping to puncture what in a human being would be a major blood vessel.

He heard something like a roar, sounding like a low, grumbling echo in a deep cave and then the monster turned. Sandor had just enough time to pull his blade back when the thing turned in the slow, lumbering way it had.

The blade of Sandor's sword was blackened by whatever muck there was inside that armour, but nothing else had happened. For a moment, he could've sworn the rumbling echo turned to laughter.

Having trained with Geralt, Sandor had become pretty fast and it should not have been a problem at all to find the weaknesses in the thing's armour, to stab through them and slowly have it bleed to death. But as he had feared, none of his carefully placed thrusts had any effect on the monster.

After what felt like an eternity of dodging and advancing, slashing and stabbing, his strength began to dwindle as well as his hope of besting the monster. In a moment of distraction, he was too late ducking away from a wide arc of his enemy's sword and only managed to parry it with his own blade before it would have cut him in half.

The steel of his weapon was no match for a blow like this and snapped off near the hilt, the metallic sound of breaking metal like the bell that tolled for his funeral.

Again the monster grumbled what sounded like a laugh.

A couple of yards away, Geralt and Zoltan dealt with the rest of the men in Strong's group, making sure that none of those just wounded would come after them. As they usually did, they were stripping them of gold and valuables besides. Even men doing good deeds needed gold to live and it was no use to the dead anyway.

 _I could use some help here_ , Sandor thought dejectedly as the monster advanced on him, still in no hurry at all, sure now of its victory.

The big sword swung again and Sandor managed to evade it this time and probably would for another few instances, but without a weapon, this was utterly hopeless. And even if Geralt or Zoltan would at one point think of throwing him a sword, he still had no idea how to kill this.

Still clinging to the useless hilt of his sword, he suddenly noticed motes of gold dancing through the air. But instead of forming a little fairy as he had half expected, the gold made for his sword-hand, swirling and dancing above the blade-less hilt, forming the oscillating, decidedly unsubstantial impression of a sword.

The being across from him seemed transfixed for a moment, observing the spectacle, but soon recovered and came at Sandor again, six foot of deadly metal swinging with a promise of destruction.

Again he danced out of its path, again he ducked around the monster and more out of habit than in any expectation of success, made a motion that would have stabbed his sword in between pieces of armour, if it still had a blade.

Which, surprisingly enough, it seemed to have.

The gold dust, instead of dispersing as one might have expected, went through the soft leather that connected the pieces of white armour and it felt to his hand as if he had truly cut through flesh this time.

The monster froze and then roared, an earth-shaking sound that sent a shiver down Sandor's spine.

Pulling the golden blade back, blackness oozed out of the place he had hit, not like the smoky mist of the thing's stench, but like putrid old blood.

Finally understanding, Sandor smiled.

It was almost too easy after that. His movements turned fluid and weightless as he danced the dance he knew by heart, a dance he had been born for, every slash hitting where it was meant to hit, ducking every stab aimed at him, piercing the thing's armour in a dozen vulnerable places over and over again, until black muck flowed freely from a dozen wounds, staining the earth around them black as if covered with tar.

The thing didn't get any faster, even when faced with destruction. Made with the thought that what was already dead could not be killed, it had no real fighting skills and even the armour seemed rather designed for hiding what was within than for truly protecting it.

Relish flooded Sandor's mind as he saw victory in his grasp, the sweetly familiar joy of killing that made him forget the tiring of his muscles, the pain in his lungs and the racing of his heart.

It wasn't so much a penchant for destruction that prompted the pleasure he felt, but the bliss of feeling alive, of knowing he would live to fight another day, the triumph of once again having come out on top.

Killing truly was the sweetest thing there was.

At last, the thing fell to its knees, splashing into a puddle of black goo that emitted a stench so noxious, the foliage above their heads wilted as the grass had done before. The ground where they had fought looked dead and barren and Sandor wondered if something living would ever grow there again.

With one last effort, he brought his weightless blade in position and put all his strength into a swiping blow right through the monsters neck.

The great, colour-feathered helm came off the thing's shoulders like an empty bucket, rolling a few feet until it came to rest on its side. There was nothing that suggested that a head had been in there, only remnants of black goo.

In front of him, the monster shuddered and the pitched forward, landing on the ground with a clanking rattle, as if someone had dumped an empty suit of armour at Sandor's feet.

Sandor kicked it for good measure and the pieces fell apart, revealing the remains of a rotting corpse, disintegrating into black, stinking decay.

Sandor gagged and took a few hasty steps back.

In his hand, the golden-dusted blade flickered and danced.

After a few moments of stunned silence, he noticed that his companions stood to his side, careful not to step into the rapidly spreading circle of dead earth that formed around the corpse, covering their noses.

Dandelion was the first to speak, pointing towards the golden blade.

"I'll turn this into a song that will still be remembered centuries from now," he said, the gravitas he was probably going for with his speech somewhat damped by the nasal sound of his voice, due to him pinching his nose shut. "I'll make you immortal."

...

"You could've just ignored him," Dandelion said, making a show of pressing a water-drenched cloth against a rapidly swelling eye.

Sandor examined his bloodied knuckles, feeling a bit guilty for having his friends dragged into this, but not really for knocking out the teeth of the bugger who had dared called Sansa a witch and a whore.

He'd heard them before, the stories.

How Sansa had first sold her maidenhead to him of all people and then flew out of the Red Keep either as a bird, a bat or on a broomstick. Tales varied here.

Unanimous, however, was the widespread conviction that she and her brother had turned to wolves at the Frey's and slaughtered them during the Red Wedding and done the same with the Boltons occupying Winterfell.

The called her the "Witch of the North", the "Wolf Witch" and other names even less flattering.

From what he'd gathered over time, tales were unanimous about the fact that Sansa and her family, probably truly by some miracle, were back at Winterfell, the great keep none the worse for all it had endured, an island amidst snow and ice and death-bringing cold, stocked with enough resources to last a couple of years of winter.

Sandor stood, restless as always when thinking of her, wanting to just go north while knowing death would find him much sooner than he would find Winterfell. But since it was night and he was tired and felt drained, he went to his bedroll instead, huddling under the furs and pretended to sleep.

Beside the fire, his comrades would probably brood silently for a while longer and nurse the scrapes they had sustained in their latest tavern brawl. Luckily, it wasn't always him who started it, so there was no need to feel too guilty about it. Call Zoltan some name for being short, doubt Dandelion's musical talent or say something derogatory about the Lady of Vengerberg and you had a fight on your hands just as surely as if you repeated any slurs about Sansa Stark.

With her name his last conscious thought, he fell asleep.

…

Hands were on him, soft and warm, stroking his chest, his arms, his shoulders.

"Wake up, love," a gentle voice asked him, "I've need of you."

He knew the voice, knew the woman behind it, beautiful, sensual and so enamoured of him he never forgot that this was a dream. Maybe he ought not to indulge in this every time such a dream came to him, maybe this was what tightened his bond to her every time he gave in to her sweetness and her pleas.

She smiled when he opened his eyes, a radiant, open smile with not a hint of falseness.

"I've missed you," she said, with twinge of sadness to her voice but the unshakable will in her eyes not to spoil their time with regrets. "I miss you every day and every night."

"I miss you, too."

An exchange between lovers who had a right to closeness, were unburdened by fear of rejection, secure in their love for each other.

Was this merely wishful thinking, his sleep-fogged mind making up what he wished for? Or was it a tantalizing hint at some possible future, made more believable by how the woman who smiled at him seemed older than the girl he had known her to be. No, he wouldn't delude himself like that, not even in dreams. Especially not there.

"I've heard you slew the Black Evil," she stated, not quite a question.

"Had some help," he said, trying for some modesty, "but yes."

Her white silken shift shimmered golden for a moment, then vanished, leaving only naked skin, flawless, soft and so terribly inviting. Her hair cascaded down, invisible hands having removed whatever held it before, the silken strands cascading over his naked chest like streams of fire.

"Here's your reward then, my hero," she whispered and leaned over him, her lips skimming against his, cool and soft.

His body reacted, as always, violently and directly, arousal shooting through him like wildfire as he grabbed the back of her head, drew her to him for a kiss, relishing her naked skin against his chest, the soft cushiony feeling of her breasts, the firm flesh of her thighs as she straddled him.

"Sandor," she breathed as he gave both of them a moment to draw breath and her fingers found his face, lovingly tracing his brow, his nose... his scars.

He howled, grabbing for the ruined skin that should be smooth and hale, shocked to his core, pained and utterly humiliated.

With a smile, she sank down on him, taking him inside; wetness and warmth, soft tightness that was a caress and a demand.

She moved and his head swam, lust and embarrassment warring inside him while her eyes were fixed on his, widened with arousal, cerulean and deep and so full of understanding, he couldn't have turned his shame away from her no matter how much he wanted to.

"I love you."

…

He jerked awake so violently, he landed face down in the damp, rotting leaves next to his bedroll, almost shouting with the shock of it.

Seven Hells!

His lungs worked overtime as if he'd been running for miles and his overall misery wasn't helped by having rolled onto his hard-on.

He bit back another violent curse, not wanting to wake the other two men peacefully snoring next to the dying fire.

If he judged the darkness correctly, Zoltan should be on watch and would probably be up on some tree-stump, smoking a pipe.

Sandor quietly got to his feet.

Another damn night forcing him to wander deep into the woods to take care of the problem his dream had left him with.

Having been a soldier most of his life with privacy being non-existent, he'd learned to do this as quietly as possible, but still preferred to bring as much distance between him and the others when he did, partly because there was no accounting for what might accidentally slip over his lips when he was right in the midst of reliving the last of his dreams.

He grabbed his cock, squeezed, pulled, bit back a groan as he remembered the feeling of her draped over his chests, her hair whispering and smelling of lemons, her hips undulating, her cunt... oh, Hells yes, her cunt!

Sometimes he drew it out, tried to milk the memory of the dream for what it was worth, but now, he hastened, too close already, fists pumping furiously, balls drawn so tight against his body as to hurt and a nameless fear at the back of his mind that bade him to hurry.

Scars!

The memory of this part of his dreams crashed into him at the same moment as his release.

A sob, pitiful in its whining tone, tore from him as seed spurted from his cock, the intensity of release almost knocking him off his feet. Trembling and swaying on his feet, he made a grab for his face, half-expecting to find maimed skin.

Why? Why would that dream suddenly turn cruel?

…

It took him a while to get a grip, to consign that dream to where dreams belonged. To oblivion. It had just been a dream after all. Nothing special, not the first time he dreamt of having his scars back and certainly not the first time he dreamt of fucking Sansa, perverted as it may be.

It was high time he tried to see her, to get those dreams out of his head, if nothing else.

With newfound determination, he turned to head back to camp, but suddenly had problems finding his bearings. Which direction had he come from? Around him, darkness was absolute. No softly glowing remnants of a campfire, no trampled path that had led him here.

Thankfully, he had thought to bring his sword and now slowly drew it from its scabbard.

Around him, the pitch-black was subtly lighted by a soft glow emanating from the golden blade. Sandor had grown used to it over the last couple of days, although he was sure he still didn't know half of what that sword could do.

He'd found out that the blade turned to a something approaching the quality of Valyrian steel when he fought against normal steel blades and lit up with something looking like fire when he went against beasts and dogs. He'd almost dropped it the first time that happened, much to his embarrassment and the other men's amusement.

The glow around the sword suddenly flared up, lighting the trees around him and sure enough, moments later his own personal fairy perched above him on a twig.

"You know you can't go to her just yet."

She wasn't even trying to turn that into a question.

"I killed the monster," he said, hating the petulant tone in which he did.

"With the Gods' help," the fairy gave back. "But yes you did and they are grateful. They have the magic, but for this, a sword was needed as well. You are their champion now, but you are still not done with your trials."

Sandor ground his teeth. That thing about being free? A delusion, quite obviously.

"What do I have to do?" he spat.

The fairy sighed.

"Contrary to what you might believe, I am not here to make your life miserable. If you pass your next two trials, you will be a hero and the world will be at your feet. You'll be a man the Lord of Winterfell will proudly call his brother-in-law if that is what you wish."

A man worthy of Sansa Stark's hand in marriage. The thought was too tempting to resist. Besides, if this was the Gods' will, who was he to gainsay them. And with the way north barred by snow and ice anyway, he had time on his hands as well.

"So, those trials...," he prompted.

"You already fought the foul shadow of your brother, and it is for you to fight Winter itself and all the frozen evil it brings with it from beyond the Wall. But to do that, you first have to triumph over your strongest foe."

"Who would that be?"

As if on an unspoken signal, the sword in his hand hissed and spew flames, once again prompting Sandor to drop it.

The fairy smiled.

"Yourself."

...

tbc


End file.
